“Did you need to rest for a moment before we go any further?” Donna said, snapping me out of my trance. 

“No, I’m fine,” I replied quickly, catching up to her. My thoughts still lingered on the statue, which looked like me. 

Soon we came upon a large oak door. I knew the king was just on the other side. Quickly I had thought of a proper greeting, but I didn’t know which to use. I turned to ask, but Donna pushed the door open before I could say anything.

The room was vast and inviting, with an orange hue lighting the beige walls leading up to a vaulted ceiling. Lining the walls were rigid guards and extravagant paintings. The only thing more rigid than the guards was the rustic man in blue regal dress-wear trimmed in gold standing next to an expensive-looking chair.

I realized he was King Al Don. As soon as we made eye contact, he pulled the expensive chair out for me to sit in. Maybe this was customary to do for a lady? I took a look at the entire scene. The situation was getting my anxiety to bubble up.

“Please sit down. You’re a guest of my domain,” the king said with a stern look on his face.

“Yes, your highness,” I replied. Pushing down my anxiety, I made my way towards the seat. As I sat down, the king pushed in my chair for me. The chair was very squishy and comfortable. Donna sat down on the left of me and the king sat to my right. They had surrounded me and put me into the position of power at the head of the table. I can't figure out why they are being so cordial with me.

The professors made their way further down the table. Looking at them sitting down, I noticed the table had been crafted out of stone and was embedded with dark purple gems. These must be the sound dampers that were mentioned. They had set the table with several silver plates and utensils that you could see reflections on.

“None of that, just call me Don. Now then, food should be served shortly,” he said, looking like he was forcing himself to talk that way.

“Could we settle for King Don? I am just not used to being casual with someone of a higher status,” I replied and he smiled a bit. It was a white lie. I rarely gave face to any patrons of the library. 

“How do you like my domain so far?”

“It is very nice. The yard was pleasant and well kept,”

“You should see how tiny everyone else’s houses are. Even the nobility only get a flower bed in front of their house. Depending on which way you came, you probably saw the lower class stacks. We keep them clean to stop diseases.”

Stacks?…

“Oh, ya that sounds very restrictive. You are lucky to have this here then.”

“It is one of the larger domes and all of it is mine and my family’s. We pushed Rune Tech to a separate connected dome.”

Dome, Runetech?…

“Was that hard?”

“Of course it was. Haven’t you ever tried to deal with those pencil pushers? They just don’t give in. Just because they control the technology doesn’t make everyone else beneath them. We pushed those pencil pushing corporations to a separate dome near our natural gem deposits.”

Corporations? Natural gem deposits? Are they only mining gems? Did they lose the ability to grow/make them?

“That sounds very hard to achieve, standing in the face of technological progress.”

“You must have traveled from very far away not to know about Rune Tech. We thought they had locations all over the world. That is what they claimed, at least.”

“Well, I am from a more remote location.”

“I can’t put a finger on where those clothes could be from. The wasteland monsters make it so hard to travel between locations. Traveling in those must have been tough.”

Wasteland monsters?

“They are something from my home. I changed just before I got here.” I consider the library my home now even though I returned to where my home was. All these questions were overwhelming me. It was like every statement he made was laced with bombshell info about the current world.

“Only executives in Rune Tech and a lucky few others travel regularly. It is too dangerous out there. Did you run into any calamity class monsters?”

Calamity class monsters?

“No, haven’t seen one yet,”

“Well, it’s not like you could miss them. They are nearly the size of mountains.”

He leaned forward, getting closer to me, saying, “That must be something to cast spells still. Where did you come from? How did your dome overcome the curse?”

Overcome the curse?

My eyes widened at the direct question. The king had thrown so many things into my mind I couldn’t absorb it all at once. Corporations? Wastelands? Domes? Calamity Class monsters? But most of all, curse? What did all these things mean? I didn’t even know where to begin.

A grin spread across the king’s face, like he had trapped me like a mouse. My anxiety felt like it was going to erupt.

“Dad, you’re drilling her way too fast. Don’t scare her. She just wants to visit the library and join the Academy,” Donna said, coming in for the save.

I took a deep breath, doing a little dance in my head as the anxiety waned slightly. 

The king scratched the side of his head. He said, “Yeah, you are probably famished. Sorry about that. We just don’t normally get visitors from afar.” He signaled one guard to come over and he whispered something into his ear. 

Again, it was really hard for me not to listen in. Oh, the possibilities when I can literally be a fly on the wall. There were so many cool stories about spying in “Scott’s: Life of an Atom Spy”. I need to collect my thoughts and get a plan of action.

“May I be shown to the restroom?”

“Yes, I will have one guard escort you while I talk to my daughter,” the king replied.

Donna refused, saying, “No, I will show her. It would be rude to leave our guest with a stranger. Well, more of a stranger.”

I stood up out of my chair and headed towards the doors we came through.

Donna quickly caught up, opening the door for me. As soon as it closed behind us, she spoke, “Hey are you okay?” She took the lead but looked at me for a reply.

“Yes, it was just a lot at once.”

“Okay, well, the food should almost be ready. We can eat and I think he took the hint.”

“Thank you.”

“Here we are. Just go through that door, do your business and wave your hand of the gem on top, and it will all go away. I will be right outside,” she said, stopping at a smaller sized door.

I opened the door and went inside. The walls were painted a light pink, and the room had a floral theme and scent. I couldn’t place what flowers they were. The toilet seemed pretty normal with a yellow gem on top. This would be the first chance to learn with their tech.

Before that, though, I had to come up with a plan. I needed to collect a few spells from my library. Diving into my memobrary, I went through the books on espionage, finding spells on memory alteration, stealth, and a few other trump cards. Upon coming back to the present, I realized just how much mana was coursing through me. I really needed to spend some time on my mana flow, but that would take too much time currently. It was starting to feel like I was losing control of it.

Hmmm now what does this do? Watching closely, I magically analyzed the yellow gem as my hand went over it. I could see faint mana tendrils form from the stone, trying to latch onto my mana. That wouldn’t happen unless I let it. I read way too many stories about mana thieves to have such a weakness.

I waved my hand over the gem again, this time allowing a tendril to catch. It pulled a slight bit of mana out of me, then glowed. A moment later, a “whoosh” could be heard startling me. I looked down at the water in the toilet as it was whisked away. Soon after, it refilled itself.

Such a neat invention. If I couldn’t evacuate myself with a spell, this would be wonderful.

There was a sink nearby that functioned much in the same manner. I looked in the mirror at my long brushed out brown hair and forest green eyes. I realized I probably looked like a forest spirit of some sort to these people with the dress I was wearing.

Waving my hand over some blue stones on the faucet caused warm water to come out. The warm, rushing stream of water over my hands felt calming. I stood there with my hands under the water as I processed the information the king gave me.

There were no genuine answers yet. I would just have to keep a mental list. Talking with the king and Donna should provide more answers, hopefully. I was getting really agitated. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was also my home. I may have not been here in a long time, but it was also mine.I could just pop my home backup, throw a defense barrier up and hide inside. That felt unreasonable. 

They were treating me weirdly. They were treating me like a shiny toy, which was annoying. I was still human, even if we didn’t look exactly the same.

I pulled my hands back from the water and cast a quick air spell to dry them off. Turning around, I headed out the door.

“I heard you figured out the sink. Good job. I forgot that you're from somewhere remote and might not know,” she said as I exited the restroom.

“Yep, not too hard to get the hang of it.”

“Well, let’s head back. I am sure the food is nearly finished,” Donna said, leading me back to the dinner room.