About then, I got this sensation that someone needed to talk to me. Actually, it was more specific than that, I knew that my mother needed to talk with me. It was an odd experience, it felt like a really intense version of that feeling you get when someone is looking at you. I wasn’t sure what to do? How do you answer a call that’s taking place in your head?

I said, “Hello?” The group around the campfire went silent and I heard my mother’s voice.

“Hey Honey,” she said. Then she laughed and said, “it’s a little bit freaky the first time isn’t it?” meaning the call completion.

“Yeah,” I said. “It is. Is that what you experienced.”

“Yes,” she said. “The first time it was with a man I barely knew, George Kaiser. He’s also a newly appointed Duke. It’s odd to have someone’s voice in your head that you have never really talked to before. So, do you want this to be a private conversation or are you going to conference in the Girls?” she asked.

“Well,” I said. “I guess I can conference in the girls, but it’s not just them anymore. More people have shown up. Big Mike, the manager of Maxes, and his family, eGirl and her partner. I used to work with eGirl. And finally, Jake Spader, a mage that eGirl and Miranda met while traveling is here as well.”

“Well,” my mom said. “If you want to conference them in, the system is capable. I’ve had conference calls with Sifu’s Army, sifu, Derek, Duke Kaiser, and another Duchess plus all their minions. The system seems to be capable of handling as many people as you want to invite. But before you do, if you decide to do so, tell me, how are you?”

“I’m OK,” I said. Along about this time, I thought, I wonder if I have to be talking? Can I just subvocalize or even think my words to her? I tried it, “We’re doing fine, we decided to hold off on traveling until we have trained our spells up enough. We’ve got aways to go. It’ll be at least a couple of weeks before the little girls, Big Mike’s daughters, have reached that level in their spells.”

“What did you do?” my mom asked. “Your voice changed, it became a lot clearer.”

“I tried to think my words/thoughts to you, instead of speaking or subvocalizing.”

“Interesting,” my mom said.

Janet chose then to speak up, “Are you talking to the Duchess right now?”

I nodded my head.

“Can you conference us in?” she asked.

“Hang on,” I said to Janet. “I want to talk to my mom alone first, OK?”

She nodded her head and everyone else did too.

“So, since everyone is going to want to know about the government and the land and the monsters and Them, I’ll not ask about those things, that way you won’t have to repeat yourself, OK?” I thought at her.

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She said that sounded good and so I asked my next question, “Are you alright? Is everyone fine there? Is Jackie doing OK? Derek? Sifu? Ah heck, how’s everyone doing?”

“Everyone is doing fine,” she said. “We’re getting organized, making plans, trying to survive. We’re starting to get a handle on things. Don’t worry about us. But how are you doing? You and your friends?”

“How much time do we have?” I asked. “Are any minotaurs going to show up?”

“Good,” she said. “You played with the map. I’m glad. But to answer your question, about an hour and no minotaurs. We’ve brokered a peace treaty with them. They actually live in Pawhuska. Remember the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve? It’s now the home of the Great Ulantuu Nation. That’s actually how they call themselves. The Ulantuu. They are an import. Evidently, They weren’t happy with just monsters and Beasts, they brought in other sentients as well. The Ulantuu come from another plane of existence, which from their stories, basically stunk. They are happy to be here. I think we’ll be happy to have them too.”

“Well, let me tell you what we’ve accomplished and the things that we’ve learned,” I said. And then I proceeded to tell her basically everything that we’d done or learned in the past 6 days. She listened. It’s funny, but that is one of my mom’s greatest skills, listening. After about thirty minutes, I started to run out of steam and asked her if she had any questions.

She responded with, “not really. A lot of the stuff you’ve told me, I knew already. Although, not all of it. For instance, I didn’t think that someone might not have taken a class yet. It seems so obvious, but maybe not. I also didn’t know what the scholar class is capable of. Actually, I hadn’t ever heard of that class before. It’s funny but with all the junior colleges, colleges and universities in Tulsa, you’d think that someone would have chosen it, brought the information about the class up to me. That is very interesting to me. We had also figured out the ranks, but it’s nice to have them confirmed. We hadn’t figured out the spell transfer mechanism as you all did. We’d kind of figured out that you could pick up spells from having them described, but not that there was a systematic way of doing it. That’s good information. Really good information. Also, imues. Who knew?”

“Here,” I said. “Let me transfer the spells that we have to you. I’m not sure which ones you have and which ones you don’t, so I’ll transfer all of them.” I did just that then, transferring or sharing a blue screen that contained all 21 mage spells that we’d come across as well as the 8 cleric spells. I also mentioned that seeing the spells and having them described and demonstrated by a person that already had them made a difference in the time it took to learn them. I also bragged that my Force Bolt was up to Iron 9. I made sure to tell her about the ‘rollover’ trick.

“What can I do to help you all?” she finally asked after we’d got the magic talk out of the way.

“That’s what I was going to say,” I said.

“No,” she said. “You’re my son. My only son. I don’t know if you realize how precious you are to me, but you are my world. I’ve gotten myself entangled in a lot of crap of late, but I want to make sure you know how important you are to me. You’re my child, I should help you, OK?”

“Yes, mom!” I said, half jokingly.

“No,” she said, “Hear me. I love you! I would do anything for you, but in this new world, there may not be a lot that I can do for you. For instance, do you know how far away you are from me now?”

“Well, Sapulpa to Sand Springs used to be about 15 minutes by car.”

“It’s a lot longer than it used to be,” she said. “Both in distance and in traveling time. And, in danger,” she said. “Do you want me to send a Griffon for you?”

“A Griffon?” I asked.

“A big, winged, grumpy lion-eagle with a bad sense of humor,” she said. “Unfortunately, it could only carry you.”

I thought about it very briefly, but then said, “No, we’re good. We’ll make it there.”

“I figured that that is what you’d say. It makes me very proud of you,” she said.

“I love you too mom,” I said. “I probably don’t say it enough, but I do.”

“I know honey,” she said. There was a quiet pause and then she said, “We ready for the conference?”