“Mahair!” I screamed out as Amoiraishe fell from Theíldhúr’s back. My heart was suddenly hammering away in my chest and my breath caught in my throat, but I brutally shoved aside that anxiety for her welfare. It wasn’t going to help her and I needed to act fast if I was going to. Spells weren’t doing much damage to the Kehüvakt and Amoiraishe had barely been able to keep it contained with Nature’s Call. The Suvas’taäl were running for the water, but some of them were trying to take captives as they left and my Mahair would make a tempting target, an unconscious Yseil'dhraí on the ice with only Theíldhúr to protect her. There as also the rampaging Kehüvakt to consider, it was furious now and one of its massive flailing tentacles was heading straight for Amoiraishe.

I needed to protect her, but I also needed to find some way to stop that thing, or at the very least slow it down. Our archers were out of arrows and it was difficult to tell if the Lindwyrm venom was having an effect yet, supposedly even the smallest drops were deadly to anything that managed to briefly survive an encounter with a Lindwyrm, but that Kraken was freaking ginormous. Without a word, my group began rushing to Amoiraishe’s side to protect her, as were all the Fae in defense of the Queen of the Autumn Court. I held on to Ghost’s crimson mane for dear life to stay mounted, only paying as little attention as was necessary to that task while I dedicated the remainder of my focus and will to reaching out with my senses to become one with the natural world around me.

I could feel everything; the water, the ice, every living creature, every stone, and even the air between me and the ice where Amoiraishe had made her stand against the Kraken as if they were a part of me. I could also feel the mana that was part of all of them. The Kehüvakt was weakening, I could sense the poison running through its veins, but it was fighting it. I needed a way to contain it, to sap its strength until the venom could finish it, and I had an idea on how I might accomplish that.

First, I needed to protect my Mahair. At my bidding water rose into the air and froze solid, forming a massive ice wall between Amoiraishe and the Kehüvakt’s fast-approaching tentacle. I could feel it crack at the impact but quickly reinforced it as the massive squid shrieked in fury. Only once I was sure that she was safe would I concentrate my efforts upon the Kehüvakt. Several Finman had made a beeline for the unconscious Queen of the Autumn Court, but two found themselves kicked and then trampled by a ferocious Theíldhúr while the others were intercepted by Amoiraishe’s royal guards who had seemed to materialize out of thin air to surround their Queen.

Now was my chance. Every portion of my mental fortitude that wasn’t focused on keeping that ice wall between Amoiraishe and the giant squid, or staying mounted, was now reaching out and drawing in all of the mana that I could gather. Using Nature’s Call had heightened my sensitivity to the natural flow of mana, and my ability to harness it, and now all I needed to do was direct as much of that flow as possible through me.

I had gotten a pretty good feel for that crystal capture spell when I had been repeatedly dodging it earlier, so I thought that I could probably replicate something similar, and with some modifications, it might just work. I knew that I couldn’t encase the whole Kehüvakt in crystal, it was just too massive, but just having her foot caught had been enough to sap Lissany’s energy. The big problem was going to be using Nature’s Call to gather and use that much mana. There could be consequences to this. No living creature could possibly contain as much mana as I planned on using, but I didn’t plan on storing it, I planned to use it. Holding Ghost’s mane tightly in my left hand, I used my right to draw the sigils as I spoke them and directed all that mana through me and toward the Kehüvakt. “Kaida kuorüis miska!”

It was like millions of pinpricks of electricity were targeting every nerve ending in my body, my very soul seemed to burn as I gritted my teeth against the agony and channeled the mana through myself, my intent laser-focused. After what seemed like an eternity of pain and the world moving in slow motion, a dozen sea-green crystalline spikes shot up from the water beneath the giant squid, rising thirty feet into the air in a circle around the Kehüvakt. Some impaled a few of its tentacles, but that hadn’t been my intent. My intent had been to cage the creature and weaken it enough for other players or the Lindwyrm venom to finish it off. I smiled at my seeming success as I fell from Ghost’s back to the ground, and as I lost consciousness I saw Narek rushing toward me.

I sat in the throne room of the Autumn Court Glade, one of several rooms of the royal residence. It was at the center of the Glade and one of the most secure places in the Autumn Court’s territory, surrounded by watch-posts and the homes of other Fae. Unlike other Fae homes, which were treehouses designed to be hidden from view high amongst the upper branches of the trees, the royal residence had been magically grown inside the trunk of a massive oak tree. My smaller throne beside Mahair’s had been made as comfortable as possible for me, but I did not like sitting in it for a long time and I was getting bored.

Pale blue eyes widened once again, looking me over intently, and then twinkled as he smiled at me and said, “Taelya, wake up!”

“Taelya, wake up!” Narek was looking down at me in concern, his eyes filled with the emotional upheaval that he refused to allow to show on his face.

“Is this Hell?” I inquired. Damn, my tongue and throat seemed to be the only parts of me that didn’t hurt. My jaw however didn’t seem to be exempt so talking hurt. Even turning my head to see that, no I wasn’t in the waiting room that had been described, caused me tremendous pain.

Rei and Salem were right there too, and my fiancée was frowning as my eyes fluttered. “No, not that you didn’t give it your best shot. Don’t move Tae, we need to make sure that you’re not seriously hurt. You passed out and fell off Ghost.”

I didn’t plan on moving any time soon, even if I had thought that I could. My whole body felt like I’d been electrocuted; I hurt just about everywhere, even my hair, and my muscles felt like jelly, jelly that was on fire. “M…Mahair?” I managed to ask.

“She’s safe, and Khyrin is looking her over now. It looks like she just overdid it with Nature’s Call,” Salem offered. “That was some spell you cast there. That big squid thing is pinned now and almost everyone who can fight is trying to finish it off. The Finfolk have all retreated too, so we should all be safe once it’s taken down.”

“Goddess! What in name of Danu do you think you were doing, Taelya?! You could have been killed trying to channel that much mana through you at once! First, you pull that high flying stunt, and now this! Just because you can be resurrected in this game doesn’t mean that you should taunt the reaper at every given opportunity! I swear that you are as terrifying, frustrating, reckless, and fool-headed as your Mahair! You two are going to be the death of me! What will Amoiraishe think?! Don’t you realize how important you are to us?! What you mean to the Winter Court?!” Narek berated me frantically. “Do what your consort says and lay still, not one word out of you, and don’t you ever scare us like that again young lady!”

If I could have moved without searing pain, I would have shrunk away. He was right, I had been reckless, but I had needed to do something. What concerned me far more at the moment though was his assertion that I was his daughter in the game, a claim that seemed to be supported by my earlier memory/dream. He may as well have said, “No Taelya, I am your father!” in a deep voice while breathing heavily as much as that little tidbit of information had blindsided me. It did make his recent protectiveness and his desire to train me to fight in his family’s style make sense, although it made his testing of my character a little bit unnerving, especially if he knew about that while pretending to constantly hit on me. Ewww. At least I was relatively sure that both that and the arrogance had been an act now, especially given the way that he had gone out of his way to avoid me altogether during the previous night’s carnal festivities.

I obediently laid there quietly like a good little girl while Rei and Salem looked me over. I had aggravated my healing shoulder injury from earlier since Ghost had been running at a good clip when I unintentionally dismounted, but she had managed to slow her pace and lower her body a bit once she realized that I was falling. Salem figured that it was Ghost’s presence of mind that had prevented me from getting a concussion as well, so I only ended up with a good lump on the head. I had also overtaxed my body as a whole with my mana channeling stunt.

Rei performed some healing prayers and gave me a severe look as she delivered the prognosis. Then told me, “That’s the best that I can do for now. I could use my hands-on-healing ability, but I would rather keep it in reserve in case there is anyone near death when the other wounded start coming in. And maybe this will teach you to stop overdoing it. I want you on bed rest for at least two days, under observation at all times, while you heal up. No strenuous activity of any kind and no magick.”

I wasn’t happy, and yes I did pout a bit, but when all was said and done I figured that it could have been a lot worse. And at least I wouldn’t have to go through sword lessons with Narek for a few days. Hell, I might just need a few days just to come to terms with him getting all parental on me. It wasn’t long after that when we got notifications that the Kehüvakt had been killed and our XP rewards for the completed battle. I had gained another level and increased my mana absorption ability, but nothing more than that, but I didn’t mind that at all. I wanted other players to enjoy the game and its rewards and I was just happy that we had come out of the battle without an overly excessive number of player deaths. We had lost twenty-seven players overall, which wasn’t near as bad as I had been fearing and all the players who had gotten involved in the day’s battle had made a good amount of XP.

I was dutifully resting under Narek’s watchful eye while Salem and Rei helped tend to the wounded and the others in my party searched for loot for our party along with all the other players without serious injuries. Níala and Sonja's party had gotten a choice of special rewards for landing the ‘killing blow’ on the giant squid, but there was plenty of loot to be found on the corpses of the Finfolk, such as armor or weapons that could be repaired or re-forged and possibly a few magical artifacts. There was also talk of harvesting the Kehüvakt for food for the village, if it could be cooked properly to inactivate the Lindwyrm toxin.

It was while I was resting that Sahnae and Sheriff Shaw showed up. “How is Taelya?” the Duchess of the Spring Court inquired.

I was about to answer when Narek gave me a stern look and did so for me. “She needs to rest and heal but she’ll live. She’s got her mother’s stubbornness. How is Amoiraishe?” His expression quickly turned to one of concern as he asked.

“She’s about the same, Theíldhúr prevented her from taking any real harm, but she overdid it with Nature’s Call. She’s conscious now, but she may have to take some time while her virtual body is recovering to check on things in the real world. The techs on the outside forwarded some distressing news from the New York branch.” At the Winter Court representative’s look of alarm, she quickly assured him, “It’s nothing serious… at the moment. Some of our American investors didn’t like having the tables turned on their little lockout by the board of directors, especially with everything going on out there, but if it does get serious it could impact our timetable, and possibly the emergency plan for the New York office.”

Narek wore a frown once more as he asked, “Everyone there is alright then?”

“For the moment, yes. Everything is secure,” Sahnae confirmed, eliciting a sigh of relief from Narek. “From the sound of it Sasha is furious, but she’s taking what action she can. It will help if Moira can be freed up for a few hours or more in the real world to discuss a plan of action with her though. You should go talk to her now if you have any input on the matter, Narek.”

“Thank you, I’ll do that. Could you please watch Taelya while I’m gone and make sure she doesn’t pull any more stunts like her Mahair?” I resented his insinuation that I needed a babysitter, but I liked Sahnae and Becky so I decided to let it go. Besides, Becky looked as confused and concerned by their conversation as I was. Were they just talking about business matters, or was it something more? Either way, it wasn’t like I could do anything about it. Becky must have thought the same because instead of pressing the issue once Narek had left she smiled down at me, “Hey Tae, since Sahnae was coming to check on you, I decided I’d join her so I could give you your special reward for today’s battle.”

“Wait, I thought only Níala’s party got the special rewards for finishing it off,” I managed to get out, wincing a little at the pain from moving. I had been given something to ease the discomfort, but it had barely put a dent in it so far. That and the lessening of pain in the rest of my body only made my shoulder hurt that much more.

“Hey, I’m the GM. You turned the tide when Amoiraishe went down and I thought you should have a reward for creative, and slightly crazy, thinking. I coded it for you myself.” The last was added with a grin before a look of concentration appeared on her face and then something alarmingly pink appeared in her hands. It looked like some sort of stuffed animal and once she knelt down to give me a closer look I saw that it was a big cutesy-looking pink squid, with eight fuzzy tentacles and big anime-styled eyes. Wait, were those straps underneath? Sure enough, when she tilted it up and turned it so I could get a better look I discovered that it was a stuffed squid motorcycle helmet. On the back, there was even a red reflective light and above that, in red letters, it said, “Take me to your leader.”

“Ow! Ow! Don’t make me laugh, it hurts!” I complained through a bout of painful giggles.

“Serves you right for trying something so insane. At least next time you’ll have some protection when you decide to do something crazy and fly off Ghost’s back,” the sheriff chastised me.

“You’d know crazy,” I retorted once the painful giggles had subsided.

“Yup, I do, she’s teaching me magick,” she shot back with a grin.

I groaned and didn’t dignify that with a response. Sahnae though wore a serious expression as she sat down beside me and patted my hand gently. “Taelya, that spell was a great idea, and so was using the Lindwyrm venom but you put yourself in serious danger, not only by channeling that much mana through your body but also by drawing so much mana from a single area. If you had drained an object or living thing of all its mana the result could have been disastrous. The whole reason that we’re taught to draw mana from multiple sources is so we don’t deplete one source completely.”

At the looks of confusion on both my face and Becky’s, Sahnae let out a sigh. Then she picked up a tiny pebble from the ground. “You are a gifted Magus Taelya, but you are still learning. Allow me to explain. Are you familiar with the saying ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’?”

Once we had both nodded and confirmed that we were indeed familiar with the quote, the Spring Court Yseil’dhraí continued her explanation. “This quote is very apt where mana is involved. Mana is present in everything and because it’s such an important part of the natural universe, such an integral part of all things, matter does not want to be absent of mana. What would you do if all of the breathable air was suddenly sucked out of this area? You would try to find more air before you suffocated, yes?”

“Yeah, we’d probably die otherwise,” I responded hesitantly. I suddenly had a very bad idea of where she might be going with this.

“Now, let us say that I completely drained this pebble of all of its mana without giving it time for the natural flow of mana to replenish it,” Sahnae continued. “It doesn’t want to be without mana, mana is essential for its continued existence. So, just like you searching frantically for air, it’s going to rush to the nearest source of mana as fast as it can. Now, the air around it, and my fingers have mana so the outside of the pebble will try to rush toward that mana. But the closer you get to the center of the pebble, the further away it is from what it needs so it’s going to rush faster. So the pebble would explode, tearing itself apart from the inside out to fill itself with mana again and utterly destroying itself in the process. In that destruction we lose part of creation forever, the balance of nature is disrupted, and anything around the pebble could be irrevocably damaged as well. Now imagine that on a larger scale, say that new helmet of yours or a living creature.”

I almost threw up in my mouth as I pictured the last suggestion. I also decided right then that I was going to be a lot more conscious about just how much mana I took from any one thing and that I was going to make this a mandatory lesson for my apprentices. “Thanks, Sahnae,” I said somewhat sheepishly as I reflexively shrunk back in shame and winced from the pain that It caused in my shoulder. I should have thought things through more, but I guess that I was panicking a bit.”

“You were concerned for the welfare of your Mahair and others and the idea was sound,” she said, smiling down at me. “I’ve never heard of anyone trying to use Nature’s Call in that way. Please try to avoid nearly killing yourself in the future though, you do your Mahair and your Court proud, and they need you.”

“I dunno, I never really wanted this whole leader thing and I think there are a lot of people who could do it better, people who wouldn’t be so impulsive and make mistakes like that,” I said with a shake of my head, causing pain to shoot through my shoulder again.

“The Fae and non-Humans love you Tae, so do quite a few of the Humans,” Sheriff Shaw corrected. “You lead by example and you care about everyone.”

“She is right Taelya, and I believe that you saw Amoiraishe out there going toe to toe with the Kehüvakt?” Sahnae pointed out with a slight smirk on her face. “The two of you have a lot in common. Trust me, everyone makes mistakes, and I have made more than a few myself, it is part of the learning process. You may not have wanted to be a leader but you do it naturally and you are always learning and making an effort to become a better leader, not for yourself, but for those who follow you. I have heard this from several people and observed it myself. True wisdom isn’t about not making mistakes, it is the lessons that we choose to learn when we know that we are not wise.”

Rei wouldn’t let me out of bed for three days after the battle in the village. During that time there were two more minor skirmishes; one with some goblins in the southern woods and another when a Shadow Walker and his undead minions tried to enter the Fae Glade. Both battles were easily won through the combined efforts of the Humans in Haven and the residents of the Glade, or at least that was what I was told in the reports that Nishalle and Huntsmaster Nakir were delivering while Amoiraishe was temporarily out of the game and I was in charge.

Rei had been serious about the twenty-four-hour observation as well. There was always someone watching over me, the only place I could get a moment’s peace was in the bathroom, sometimes anyway. When Rei wasn’t watching me herself it was Daenyss and when it wasn’t Daenyss it was Salem or one of our other party-mates. I may not have been allowed to use magick myself, but at least I could teach Salem a few new spells to get her started during her shifts. First I taught her the illusion spell that I had promised and then the beginner teleportation spell.

Everyone else tried to keep me entertained and keep my spirits up though and Willow seemed to enjoy spending all of her time with me. Rei, Venika, Lissany, Nishalle, and Daenyss were the worst mother hens, even cutting my meals for me, though I drew the line at letting any of them feed me. When it was Lark’s turn she would sing and/or play one of her instruments and I could sense the healing magick that she was sneaking into the music. It was much appreciated. Narek had even tried taking a shift of watching over me, but it was ridiculously awkward for me with the elephant in the room, and he seemed to have something on his mind. Whether it was his apparent fatherhood to me or something else I wasn’t sure, but our conversations during that time were awkward and limited.

I wasn’t the only one on the mend either. We may have only had twenty-seven players die during the Suvas’taäl raid but nearly a hundred of us were nursing some sort of injuries. The death count could have been higher, but between Salem and a few other Medics knowing CPR and Rei gaining a Resurrection Prayer, our losses were mercifully light. At least the dead who hadn’t been resurrected could respawn the next day and be useful again, the living injured weren’t so fortunate. Rei had been out most of the first night from using her hands-on healing on a Human who had had nearly half the bones in his body broken when he was hit with a flailing Kraken tentacle. They were both fine after a good night of sleep, but Grell and his Atlantean girlfriend and business partner, Ashura, had both been injured fighting off several Finfolk who had tried to capture her.

The pair had been injured so badly that an Atlantean Priest NPC had taken them both away with another Atlantean player and three Atlantean NPCs for a process that the Atlanteans called ‘Restoration’, or at least that was what it translated to. It was some sort of Atlantean trade secret for Atlanteans who were near death, an artificed device that they were placed in for a couple of days to heal. I was a bit jealous since the pair had returned the day before I was let out of bed looking and feeling as good as new, they didn’t even have any scars from what Pete told me.

By the time the three days were up and Rei felt that I was fully recovered I was itching for something to do. Amoiraishe had returned to the game that morning as well, but saying that she was not in a good mood would have been putting it mildly. Between that and the cloud of a possible Redcap attack that could happen at any time hanging over us, the mood during breakfast was subdued. I was actually happy to get back to my training with Narek. I was happier refining my abilities with Nature’s Call and learning new spells from Amoiraishe, but even sword training with Narek was preferable to lying in bed doing nothing or brooding about things that I had no control over.

It was during a break in my lesson with Amoiraishe that I finally asked, “What’s wrong, Mahair? You’ve been agitated and distracted since you got back in the game this morning.” I sat down on the soft sand of the beach, gently petted Willow, and looked off in the distance at the crystal spikes still jutting out from the water in Haven’s small harbor as I awaited an answer.

It was several minutes before that answer came. “One of the American investors broke confidentiality and told a general with the US Department of Defense what we have here after I took a controlling interest in the company. They have political backing and are pressuring Sasha to sell them our technology. Their last attempt came with a threat to invoke the Defense Production Act and force her to sell it to them at what would be a huge loss.”

“Can they do that?” I asked, frowning in concern.

Amoiraishe sniffed indignantly. “They wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on, and they know it. We may have some American investors, but we are a Canadian company and our corporate headquarters is in Canada so their Defense Production Act doesn’t apply to us. Sasha and the legal team are stonewalling them for now, but I don’t like being threatened and I don’t trust them not to try to take what they want by force if we won’t give it up willingly. We may need to move our people and tech to a more secure location off US soil before they can attempt that. We were planning on moving everything to more secure compounds after the closed beta, but this may step up our timetable, which would force us to cancel the inter-server tournament and shut down the game while we move our assets.”

Anxiety swirled around in my chest like a tornado at that revelation. It was the first serious panic attack that I had had since my body dysphoria had left me and I had to force myself to breathe properly and calm down. What would we do if they had to shut down the game? I loved being Fae, it was like I had finally found myself after a lifetime of not knowing who I should be. For the first time in my life, I was actually happy with who I was, comfortable in my own skin. Jess was so happy being Rei too, being able to have her body match how she was feeling inside. We weren’t the only ones who would lose out either. Practically everyone that I cared about had found something in this game that made them happier than they had been in the outside world.

I tried to keep telling myself that it was just a game, that we could come back to it once they got everything more secure and the game was officially released. Could I really go back to working a monotonous job every day and then logging into the game for a few hours to feel like myself? Could Jess or any of the others do that? If I was comfortable as Taelya what would that mean when I tried to become Caleb again? Would I go back to the same self-loathing with a bit of dysphoria thrown in? The thoughts just kept assaulting me until finally, I had managed to control my thoughts and breathing with Fae mental exercises. With that done I asked, “So what happens now?”

“Our New York office and Winter Server are in the most immediate danger,” my Mahair replied cautiously. “We’ll try to give as much notice as we can if we decide to shut down Autumn Server and move to a more secure location, but I have everyone on the outside preparing for the possibility. The other offices are doing the same. I would rather avoid shutting the game down early, it’s such a pleasant little dream, isn’t it? You’ve all become so comfortable here as your new selves and you’re not mentally prepared to go back to face the real world yet. I would prefer to give you the time to adjust to the idea. Until then we keep the game going as if nothing has happened. Try to enjoy yourself, push yourself to be your best, and treat each spell you cast, each action you take as if it could be the last you make in the game.”