Claih and Troy were a surprisingly effective duo, working together to figure out how best to equip Grace. Troy was more than keen to get Grace kitted out in shiny magitech stuff. Unfortunately, we had no way to actually make the things she’d need, but they decided to at least figure out what setup my girlfriend was best with.

She had a go with Claih’s really big rifle, Otho’s smaller one and then some pistols of various sizes too. She seemed to enjoy the big pistols the most. The type that was so big they’d give your heart an extra beat if they had fired regular bullets. Instead they used magic as ammunition, which instead had your hair standing on end and a saw-toothed vibration rushing through your body.

That wasn’t to say she was terrible with the other guns. The big rifle that Claih had also had Grace smiling as she blasted away at trees. She wasn’t amazing, but she could hit things okay considering how little training she had. I guess I’d be setting up a shooting range in my grove at some point soon.

Meanwhile, our journey into the mountains was mercifully uninterrupted after the run in with the Ghraiga scouts. I really hoped we’d gotten all of them, because if we hadn’t, it might bring a whole lot of unwanted attention down on Avonside. I know that my scans hadn’t found anything nearby, and neither had the efforts of the obrec rangers, but my stomach still twisted anxiously regardless.

The terrain itself was our biggest problem in moving forward. Entire days were spent trying to find a path forward, sitting in the wagons and talking aimlessly while the rangers did their thing. I wished I had a spell to help them, some way to point them in the right direction. I had ideas of scanning the area and then creating a holographic map. That was way above my skills though.

It was yet another day and we were sitting around bored out of our minds as the scouts ranged ahead. The forest had gotten increasingly harder to get the wagons through and tall mountains slowly rose up on either side of us. I felt like we were getting close though. I swear I recognised some of the tallest peaks. That is, when I could see them, the canopy was pretty thick.

The living parts of the forest weren’t the only problem, because it was part tree but also part boulder, huge hunks of the stone lay everywhere, covered in plantlife and moss. There were a ton of rocks hidden throughout the underbrush too, just waiting for a wagon wheel to run into it.

I was sitting against one of those wheels, Grace splayed out across the ground, head in my lap and her arm over her eyes as she tried to sleep. I loved her, I loved my girlfriend so much. We’d spent so much time in each other’s company during the past month that it felt like we’d been together for a year, not a few months.

She was so pretty, her almost shoulder length blond hair going everywhere, the internal colour on full display. Green and blue strands splayed out in all their glossy glory.

Gently, I used a finger to trace her hairline, marvelling at both her soft skin and her soft hair. Until she giggled and gave a little squirm, lifting her arm to glare at me, “Ryn! That tickles!”

“Sorry,” I grinned, placing my hand fully over her head and smoothing her hair out over my thigh. So damned soft.

“Hey,” a small voice said, causing both myself and Grace to look over in its direction.

Kit stood a few meters away, awkwardly holding her hands in front of her as she gave us a tentative smile.

“What’s up?” I asked, beckoning her over. “Pull up a wheel or a patch of ground and sit with us.”

Her smile went from hesitant to amused and genuine in the space of a moment. “Funny,” she replied with a little roll of her eyes as she sat down next to me.

“Where’s Mer?” I asked, glancing around quickly to see if she was hiding somewhere. Nope, Merwig wasn’t in sight.

“Oh… um… she had to do guard stuff,” Kit shrugged, already playing with a twig that she’d picked up off the ground. “Otho got grumpy with her for spending so much time with me instead of doing her guard work.”

Kit and Mer had been almost inseparable since we’d gotten the shorter girl back from her fruit. I say almost because they hadn’t actually gotten closer than a few feet to each other since their hug in my grove. Kit seemed all over the place mentally, and I think Mer had picked up on that, backing off on pushing any potential relationship in favour of being a friend to the skittish girl.

Rather than ask further about Mer, I changed the topic, “How are you doing? Has Esra taken you to make a grove yet?”

She shook her head. Esra had tasked me with different things to study and train in while she focused on foundational learning for Kit. Our mage mother had helped me set up my own training area on the lower level of the plateau, somewhere I could practice magical combat without “causing a racket while I’m trying to teach young Kit”, whatever that meant. Kit and I were the same age anyway, or nearabouts.

“Still the boring basics then?” I grinned, leaning back to glance over at some rangers who’d just arrived back at the caravan.

“Kinda… is it weird that I actually enjoy it? I mean it’s easy, but it’s all just so… so cool!” Kit said, getting excited next to me. “The way magic interacts with the structures inside spell plants is just so strange, you know? I’ve seen a neural network laid out in a sort of graphic right, back when computers were a thing in our lives, and it almost looks the same.”

“Huh… I didn’t actually think of it like that, but you’re right. It’s somewhere between those fancy graphics of neurons firing and a crystal lattice or whatever,” I hummed, then perked up as Troy turned and waved at us, motioning for the three of us to go over there. “Guess they need us. Let’s go.”

We all hauled ourselves up off the damp forest floor and made our way over to the gathering crowd of people. They stood near the lead wagon, which had stopped because the ground was getting pretty bad in front of us.

One of the higher ranking scouts was nodding as she spoke to Troy, “Yeah, they didn’t see us. It was a good effort, for a group that obviously hasn’t done much bushcraft.”

“So they weren’t very good then?” he smiled, rolling his eyes. “Figures.”

“Well, I was trying to be diplomatic about it,” she laughed, her ears twitching in that way that obrec ears did when they laughed. “They’re your people after all.”

“I didn’t train them,” Troy said with mock defensiveness, holding his hands up.

“Wait, we found some of our people?” I blurted, suddenly very excited and very anxious. This was it. This was the homecoming I had been working towards for months, ever since I got out of that fruit.

“Aye, we did,” the scout smiled, turning to me. “Looks like they have hidden sentries set up, even made little towers. It’s adorable, really… but we might have to teach them a thing or two once we get there and explain ourselves. Provided we’re paid, of course.”

My mind was whirling in a dozen different directions, each of them only tangentially related to one another. How were Kelsey and Melody doing? How much had the campus changed while we were gone? Then there was Bray, my only friend from before all this started. How was he doing?

“We’ll get to that,” Troy agreed absently, running the pad of his thumb over his stubble. “For now though, I think it’s important that we make contact at least. We’ve been gone for months, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve written us off as dead by now.”

“So we rock up to that sentry post and just… say hello?” Grace asked, sharing a quick nervous glance with me.

It sounded so anticlimactic. Coming all this way just to knock on the proverbial door and say hello. Then again, what else were we going to do?

“Yeah, pretty much,” Troy nodded with a deadpan expression. “We’ll approach without stealth, just to make sure they know we’re friendly. Black armour on and waving hello, all that jazz, so get ready… and where the hell is Adam?”

****

The sentry post was hidden in a rocky outcropping a few miles from where the caravan had stopped. Honestly, I still couldn’t see it, no matter how many times the obrec rangers pointed it out. I was just taking their word on it. I could sense them however, my scan spell picking them up easily.

As we approached, Adam and Troy were at the front while the three of us girls walked behind them. The two guys were the only ones out of the group that hadn’t changed in some drastic way, so this was going to take some explaining. In hindsight, it was a damned good thing that Troy hadn’t gone into the fruit. I could only imagine the hassle we’d encounter with him looking different. We had one ranger with us and several more shadowing our movements within the trees.

“Oh, I can see them now! With my mage sight,” I said, tilting my head to look up. We were close enough now, just a couple of hundred yards, and I could dimly see their magical auras.

“Lucky for some,” Kit grumbled from beside me, squinting to try and eke out just a little more focus from her busted eyes. Poor girl. It really was odd that the fruit had done that.

“Let’s stop here,” Troy said, holding his hand up in a fist like any of us actually knew his funny army signals. I think that one meant stop?

We came to a halt anyway, fanning out to relax a bit from the trek over. My legs hadn’t gotten that much exercise in a while, and although they weren’t protesting, they felt a little warm.

“Adam, please use that loud voice of yours to call them down,” Troy said, turning to Adam with the slightest of smiles.

“Wow, rude,” Adam grinned turning anyway and cupping his hands around his mouth. “Yo! Avonsiders! We’re here to talk! It’s Troy and company! Minus some and plus a whole lot more!”

“Real formal,” Grace commented with a quiet chuckle. “Professional and well delivered.”

“Thanks,” he replied with a grin. “I’m just talented at this sort of thing, you know? Maybe I should write Ryn’s speeches for her when she’s empress of the ring.”

“Oh god, no thanks,” I grimaced, the thought of that much responsibility sending a shudder down my spine. The number of meetings that would entail…

We bantered away for what felt like an hour before we finally saw some people coming down from the sentry post. Three figures picking their way carefully down the face of the rocky outcropping. From this distance I could only make out two men and a woman, but I had a spell for that.

I cast the lensing spell, but grunted in disappointment when I didn’t recognise any of them. They looked like students at least, which was hopeful. I’d been a little afraid of running into the power tripping security forces that had ruled Avonside during the week I was there.

They wore padded body armour similar to the Order, although it was unpainted and a little light on metal plates. Most of it was undyed leather.

Approaching cautiously, they stopped a dozen yards away and eyed us up. I could see the worry in their eyes, like they were expecting to be jumped and killed.

“Hey friends,” Troy said in english, giving them a slight wave. “We’re uh, finally back. Don’t know if you’d even remember faculty sending us out. We’re scouting team one. At least, that’s what they called us when we left.”

“Wait, you’re that guy… the one who was yelling about needing intel on the outside world like five months ago!” one of the guys blurted, his eyes going wide. “Troy, right? No shit, I actually remember watching you leave. Man, those security guys were so mad you showed them up.”

“There’s only three of you in the armour,” the woman said, expression suspicious as she glanced at Kit and I. Then her eyes went as big as dinner plates when she saw the obrec ranger who was with us. “What is that?”

“Who, and they’re an obrec,” I supplied helpfully. “Alien, from a big mountain range a few months south of here.”

The woman’s eyes stayed on the obrec, but the two guys turned to look at me, and I inwardly cringed as they both gave me a once over. Right, forgot about that. I was pretty now.

They were silent for a long time as they processed their thoughts, before the woman shook herself and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “I can’t believe I was getting drunk and trying to get through a BA only half a year ago,” she groaned, turning her eyes up. “This fucking ring, dude.”

“You think you have it bad,” I laughed, unable to help myself. “I was a dude six months ago, then I got swallowed by a magic fruit. Dunno if you remember the first week. I’m told there was a real shitstorm after I uh, disappeared.”

“For real?” one of the guys blurted, his eyes bugging out. “You’re that Eli dude? The one that went missing? Damn right there was a shitstorm, they had to make an announcement about you. You’re uh, looking good… by the way… How did that even happen? That’s some next level sci-fi shit right there.”

“You’ve heard of me then,” I smiled wryly, then sighed, “And the story is… a lot to explain.”

I’d explain the whole magical transformation, trans thing and new name thing later. It would only confuse the situation, and my old nickname was just feminine enough that it didn’t hurt too much. Especially since I’d spent a while in my dream body, allowing me to be confident in who I really was. I wasn’t going to let some shitty old name hurt me anymore. Well, maybe a little… I’d just endure it.

“We’ll see,” the woman said, clearly not as convinced as her male compatriots. “So what else? I have a radio that I can call back with, but I need to actually know what I should tell them.”

“Uh,” Troy said, turning to look at us. I felt for him. Where the hell did you even start with the magnitude of shit we had to report. “Well, tell them Troy’s scouting mission is back. Tell them we also found the student formerly known as Elias Belrose, who went missing during our first week on the ring. Also tell them that we have a trade mission from a potential ally. A group of non-humans called obrec, from a nation called the Stonechasers.”

“Righto,” she nodded, opening a pouch at her hip and taking out a big chunky walkie talkie.

I cleared my throat and almost put up my hand before saying, “Tell them we have literal tons of metal and metal ore for them.”

“That is something they will be happy to hear,” she said, a genuine smile taking over her face. “We need metal like nothing else. Let me make the call.”