Frozen Stars Over Wonderland - Chapter 25 (Patreon)

The meeting came sooner than Alfre expected. Eyes were on her as she marched into the same room the first meeting had been held in, though the table in the center was a little smaller than it used to be. She marched in confidently, shoulders thrown back and direwolf coat billowing out behind her. Beira trotted along at her side, Elias and Spica just behind her. The three seats meant for Ren and her seconds were empty between Doremi and Lance. Standing at the opposite end of the seats was Ren, Silver and Ran flanking her like they always did. Alfre held her eyes as she took the seat that used to belong to the queen. Ren smirked at her.

There was the loud clattering of chairs being thrown back and the yelps of surprised council members as two more guests entered the room. Alfre turned to look over her shoulder, catching Abital and Canus’ gazes. She smiled at them and motioned for them to come closer.

“I hope you all don’t mind that I invited a few friends to this meeting,” she said casually to the other council members. “I figured they might be able to give us some insight into what’s going on else where in the world.” She turned to stare Ran down. “That is what this is about, right? You’re finally deciding to share with us your communications with the Fell of Ahmar?”

Ran shifted uncomfortably, obviously ashamed at being called out. “That’s right. Something has come to my attention through my communications with a friend of mine in Ahmar, and I think the council needs to hear about it. Since this affects us all.”

Alfre leaned forward, steepling her fingers like Ren had done during the meeting that had founding this very council. Every eye in the room turned to Ran, who looked uncomfortable, though not because of the stares. No, something else was bothering him.

He inhaled deeply, pulling out a small stack of papers and laying them on the table. “As some of you know, when the intercontinental communications initiative was established, it was decided that three different guilds would be in charge of establishing communication with one of the three other continents. Sweet Summer Children was to establish lines of communications with Berdea in the south, Wall Street Spade with Kowhai in the west, and Crystal Moon Kingdom with Ahmar in the east. We have been somewhat successful, though I didn’t want to share our methods until I was one hundred percent happy with their efficiency and reliability. But now, I see no other choice.

He sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging and a deep frown Alfre had never seen before tugging at his lips. “The City of Heart has fallen.”

Heavy silence fell on the room before it exploded into chaos. Everyone was shouting, asking questions, demanding explanations. Beira whined, tucking her tail about her paws and attempting to hide her head in Alfre’s lap. Alfre carded her fingers through the direwolf’s fur soothingly. She watched as Ran let the shouts wash over him, his brows furrowed and his shoulders so tense they were shaking. Everyone was so loud he couldn’t hear any one individual’s questions.

“ENOUGH!”

The room grew silent even as it echoed with Ren’s voice. She glared them all down, golden eyes flashing dangerously. Alfre wondered absently if that was the last thing monsters saw when they met Ren on the battlefield.

“Let my brother speak!” she commanded. “Maybe then you’d get your answers.”

Ran sent his sister a small, thankful smile. His expression fell grim once more as he addressed the council. “According to a friend of mine that I’d been writing to during the experiment, tensions between the Wonderlanders and the Fell were far more…evident there than they are here. Ahmar is far more heavily populated with Wonderlanders, after all, given how large it is and how much of it is farmable prairie land. There had been…confrontations between the Fell and the largest of Ahmar’s Wonderlander kingdoms. The last confrontation…led to a war of a kind. The City of Heart doesn’t have the same defenses as the other Fell cities. We have our walls and the cliffs to deter invaders. Clover is built in the middle of a delta and is more maze than city. Diamond’s valley is easily defensible, and their river makes evacuation easy. Heart doesn’t have any of that, save for it’s many rings of walls.”

“I don’t understand, Wonderlanders don’t respawn,” the rabbit familiar, Cherry, spoke up. “How were they able to defeat the Fell?”

Ran grimaced. “Because Fell helped them.”

“WHAT?!”

“That’s impossible!”

“You must be joking! Tell me your joking!”

Alfre tugged at Abital’s robes. He bent down so she could whisper in his ear. He nodded silently and slipped from the room through a portal. She turned back to the table, listening to the shouting of the council members. None of them seemed to be able to comprehend that players would turn on each other; as if they had forgotten the days when bandits would kill any player they stumbled across. And really, toppling a regime was something Fell had done before. It’d been the first major quest that Alfre had ever been on. True, Alessio had been the proper ruler, but she still brought down a monarch. It would make even more sense if Heart had remained divided like Siniy had once been.

She felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck as Abital returned through a portal of smoke and shadow. Cherry squeaked at his sudden returned, earning him the attention of the other council members.

“It is true,” he informed them gravely. “The Fell city has been ransacked, the outer two rings are burning and the people are fleeing. I do not know where they expect to go. There are few kingdoms on Ahmar who would go against the Granato Empire.”

Hunter turned to Ran. “What exactly do you expect us to do?”

“There are people running, scared for their lives,” Ran said slowly. “We…we need to be prepared for the possibility that they might come here.”

One of the knights with Hunter slammed his fist down on the table. “No way! What if one of the Fell that helped the Wonderlanders comes in with them? We could be opening ourselves up to invasion.”

“If they sold out their own people, who’s to say they won’t sell us out too?” Maldrom, the dwarf who ran the Wall Street Spade guild, joined in the panic.

“They should stay and fight for their city,” Hunter argued. “Not go running off the moment something bad happens.”

“You’re all being selfish bastards, you know that?” Atticus snapped, his eyes blazing. “These are people, people who are scared with no where to go. How would you feel if you had lost everything but the clothes on your back and when you asked for help you were turned away? Why the hell would the Fell who helped take down the city want to come to Siniy? They’re probably living it up with whatever spoils the Garnato Empire promised them. The people who would be coming to us would be those most devastated by the invasion: the low-level and the guildless. We have plenty of room in the city; half the available guildhalls are empty. This city was meant to hold far more Fell then are currently living here. We can offer them shelter.”

“And we can offer them something else,” Alfre spoke up, eyes flickering from Atticus to her.

“And what’s that, Alfre?” June asked.

“An army.”

Chatter once again rose up around the table. Ren barked at everyone to shut up, and they did.

“We give them shelter, help them get back on their feet,” Alfre said, her voice strong and determined. “And then, when the time is right, we help them take back their city.”

“That’s a tall order, shorty,” Hunter grumbled. “Why should we risk our necks to get them their city back?”

“You mean other than it’s the right thing to do, you pompous bampot?” Alfre snapped. “Because the only way to fight Fell is with Fell. A bunch of assholes used their power to bully those weaker than them, just like the bandits did when the Incident was still new. Like you lot did when you kept the new players locked away in your guilds and used them like slave labor. Because helping them take back their city is the first step to making sure this never happens again.”

The table was silent, each council member meditating on her words. Alfre was right; she knew she was. They had to see that. Didn’t they?

Finally, Ludovico Volpe spoke. “We’ll need help.”

June nodded. “We’ve got steady communication with both Diamond and Clover. I’ve got lots of friends in both cities. I’m sure they’ll help us.”

“We need to get more reliable communication going with them, though,” Maldrom grumbled. “It takes weeks to send a message and then get the reply back. Especially if it’s going to Berdea.”

“I can help with that,” Ran insisted. “We’ve had decent communication with Ahmar for a short while now. Having the resources of a kingdom behind you helps more than you know.”

“First thing to convince them to do is to take refugees,” Atticus reminded. “We can storm the castle after we get everyone who needs shelter out of there.”

“He’s right,” Alfre agreed. “But to move that many people that quickly…we’ll need something better than the fishing boats we’ve got lying around.”

A young dragonling girl next to Maldrom raised her hand. “We’ve almost got a prototype for the first arcane steam engine built. If it passes the tests well enough, we could start building steamboats. They aren’t the fastest ships, but they’re faster than sail boats and would hold more people. And now that we know how to build one, replicating it is easy.”

“How fast can you finish it and get those tests done?” Ren asked.

The girl shrugged, her green scales shimmering in the light. “Two weeks? Maybe a month? Depends on if we have to do any tinkering on it.”

“That’s a long time…” Ran muttered.

“Would it be possible to replicate the engine now? If we had multiple engines to run the tests on, we might be able to get it done faster,” Cherry suggested.

Maldrom crossed his arms and hummed thoughtfully. “It’s possible. But it’s taken us three months to build the engine we have now…”

“But that included the time necessary to design and figure out what materials you needed,” June reminded. “You know what you’re doing now, it should go faster.”

The dwarf nodded. “We can give it a shot.”

“What about getting the ships there and back?” the knight beside Hunter asked. “If the Wonderlanders there are so weary of Fell, there’s no way they’ll let boats run by us anywhere near the continent.”

Alfre grinned. “I can take care of that. I have a Wonderlander prince who owes me a favor.”

“But how are they going to explain taking ships there in the first place?” Lance asked. “There’s no way we can just have them out and out say they’re taking the Fell away.”

“Hide it under the guise of a trade mission?” June suggested. “There must be something Siniy has that Ahmar doesn’t.”

“Lumber and ores,” Ludovico answered. “Ahmar is prairieland and semiarid deserts. They don’t have vast forests like Siniy and Berda have. And we have the mountains. They, at most, have really big hills they build their cities into. Send Alfre’s friend with a few crates of gold and a couple of pallets of lumber. Create secret compartments under the deck to hide the Fell. Simple.”

“Simple isn’t the word I would use, but it’s an idea, at least,” Silver grumbled.

“What if they don’t believe us? What if they attack the ship?” Panic was back in Cherry’s voice as her mind swam with all the ways the mission could go wrong.

“Then we’ll send some of us with them, play it under the guise of a quest. If they attack, we’ll take care of it,” Hunter stated simply.

“Or, we can hide them, make it less obvious,” Ren amended. “If they see Fell right away, they’re likely to attack without asking questions. I like the secret compartments idea. We can build them into the ship’s cargo hold, yes? Hide the openings behind stacks of fake crates?”

Maldrom stroked his beard. “It’s a possibility. It might be tricky, though.”

“I thought you liked a good puzzle, old man,” June challenged, a wicked smirk on her face.

Maldrom smirked back. “Oh, I never said we couldn’t do it, child.”

“So we’ll hide the refugees in the cargo hold or below that in the engine room,” Ren reiterated. “And any Fell escorts that go with them can hide in empty crates or among the pallets on deck. Better for them to be up top if anything should happen. If it works well for us, we can send the designs to Berdea and Kowhai and have them run similar missions until everyone is out.”

“Or at least everyone we can get out is out,” Ran muttered. “We have to be prepared for at least some failure. There’s no way we can save everyone.”

“Why the hell not?”

All eyes were on Elias. Even Alfre was surprised that he spoke up when he did.

“What good are we as knights, as sorcerers, as healers, as PEOPLE if we don’t do everything we can to save them all?” Elias demanded. “We’re half way to gods in this world compared to the Wonderlanders, if we can’t pull miracles out of our asses then what use are the powers we’ve been given? I won’t accept this mentality of surrender before we even start. The Fell of Ahmar are counting on us. If we give up on ourselves before we even try, then how could we expect them to put their faith in us in the first place? Besides…that sure as hell doesn’t sound like the Ran I know. You’ve defeated a dragon before with only yourself, your sister, and your best friend. And a dragon is a hell of a lot scarier than a bunch of Wonderlanders and their pet Fell. And you’ve got every player on Siniy on your side. If you can’t save everyone with a literal army of demigods on your side, then maybe you should hand command over to someone who can.”

“Elias, there’s no one in the world that can pull a feat like that out of their ass,” Ran argued, sounding terribly tired all of sudden.

Canus let out a bark of a laugh beside Alfre as Abital chuckled quietly with a smirk. All eyes were on Alfre now, flanked as she was by two literal gods. Alfre glanced up at Canus and Abital with a look that screamed ‘really? Did you have to do that?’ and sighed.

“I have been known to pull bullshit solutions out of my ass every so often,” she admitted.

“She befriend the god of the underworld,” Spica said, a smirk playing on her red lips. “That’s about as much of a miracle as one can expect.”

“It’s not a miracle if the solution is sitting down and talking,” Alfre grumbled. “Which I have a feeling is half the issue Ahmar had.”

Mutters rose up around the table once more. Hunter and his entourage eyed her warily. Cherry and her friends seemed unsure but mostly excited by the possibility. It wasn’t very often Fell worked with the Wonderlander gods after all. Ludovico stared at her, a spark of curiosity in his eye. The minty haired elf maid that stood just behind his chair smiled in a sickeningly sweet manner.

“What do you say, Alfre?” Atticus asked. “Think you can handle the job.”

One thin, snowy brow rose at the question. “The job’s half done for me. We have the plan laid out for us already. All you need is someone who doesn’t like giving up. And I’m a Scotswoman.” Alfre grinned and the council members were taken aback by how much she looked like Ren in that moment. “Stubbornness runs in my veins.”

Ran looked to his sister, seeming all the world like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Perhaps, Alfre mused, he was so hesitant to put faith in the endeavor despite his experience was because he was used to this world being a game. If he failed, there were minimal consequences. Even if they failed a quest and died along the way, they would simply respawn in Spade with a few items missing from their inventory and a small chunk of experience points gone. A slap on the wrist really. But if any of the Fell in Ahmar died during the mission, they’d end up back in Heart, and more than likely captured by the Garnato Empire. Not something anyone wanted to happen. There were real consequences to failure here. Anyone who knew this world when it was fun would be hesitant to take on something this important.

But Alfre had never known this world as a game. It was always real for her. Maybe that was why he handed over the reigns to her so easily. Maybe that was why Ren had given her seat on the council to the Alliance of Frozen Stars, because if anyone was going to take this world seriously, it was Alfre.

“They’ll need a place to go in the meantime,” Silver said. “Someplace where they can gather safely that’s easy for us to find.”

“Tell them to go to my dungeons,” Canus offered. “My wolves will keep them safe.”

“You have dungeons on Ahmar?” Alfre tried not to sound too surprised.

Canus grinned. “I have dungeons everywhere, snowbird.”

“Is there one close to the shore?” Ren asked. “Someone get me a map.”

Doremi pulled out a large, intricately detailed map of the four continents. It spanned half the table, large enough for everyone to see. She dug out a few chess pieces to use as markers. She handed over a castle to Canus. He circled the table slowly, getting as close to the pictured outline of Ahmar as he could before setting his piece atop a small cluster of hills not too far inland.

“There,” he said lowly. “Sandfur’s Den. It expands under the entirety of the hills. There will be plenty of room for them there.”

“And the mobs there won’t attack them?” Hunter questioned, leaning forward to stare the wolf god down.

Canus met his eyes with more intensity than Hunter had expected. “I control all in these dungeons. If I say they are safe, they are safe. The Wilds are mine to command. You will do well to remember that.”

Hunter sat back, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. He looked like he wanted to argue (though honestly that’s just how Hunter looked most of the time) but there was nothing that could be said to that. Canus returned to Alfre’s side, his tail wagging when she reached out to squeeze his hand in thanks.

“Is that the plan?” Ren turned her golden eyes to Alfre.

Alfre smiled. “Sounds like it. Ran and the others should get the message out to everyone they can. Ahmar needs to know we’re coming to help, and Berdea and Kowhai need to know we’ll be calling on them soon.”

There was a brief moment of hesitation before the council flew into action. June and Maldrom latched onto Ran, tugging him away and talking animatedly about what to tell the other Fell and how to get the message to them as fast as possible. Maldrom’s dragonling guild member rushed out with Doremi and the other members of the Sweet Summer Children and Wall Street Spade, pulling blueprints out of their inventory pouches as they went. Atticus barked orders and the Knights of the Burning Oak and Fell of Duty both jumped to follow them. Ludovico swept away with the others, his face a strange mix of thoughtful and manic.

When the room was just about empty, Alfre stood along with Spica and Elias. She was stopped, however, by a hand on her shoulder just before she left the palace. She turned to see Ren smiling at her. Not grinning, like she usually did, just smiling.

“I knew I did good when I picked you,” she said.

Alfre smiled in return. “Thank you, your majesty.”

The walk back to the guildhall was long, and silent. Spica wrapped her arm around Elias’, walking close to him with a pensive frown on her face. Elias’ ears drooped as he grasped Spica’s hand tight. Abital and Canus, for once, had no argument to pass the time. Beira pressed up against Alfre’s side, allowing the Winter Blade to run her fingers through the thick, soft fur of the direwolf’s pelt for comfort. Wallace met them at the door, his smile falling as he saw the looks on their faces.

“What happened?” he demanded. “What did they say?”

Frosty blue met warm, earthy brown and Alfre smiled sadly at him.

“We’re going to war.”