“Ah, yes, I shall remind him. Could I also ask for a different piece of cake than this morning to be brought outside? If available that is.”

Harold responded with a raised eyebrow as he opened the games room door for her, walking in after her as he spoke.

“Of course, it seems your grace has developed quite a sweet tooth over the last few days. Would you like me to bring anything else?”

Aurora pondered for a moment before answering, a hint of excitement showing on her face.

“A cocktail you feel may be complementary to the cake if you don’t mind.”

Aurora walked through the patio doors Harold held open for her before he left to perform his new set of tasks. With a quick glance around, she waved in greeting at her 3 friends who were all reclined on the wicker furniture surrounding a low glass table.

The vista before her was as breath taking as usual, with the sun setting over the rise on the other side of the valley where her manor was located, and the trimmed lawn at the edge of the patio slowly changing into the rough grass of fields and meadows. At the bottom of the valley, she could see flickers of the sun’s light flickering off the river that lazily flowed along the valley floor, the whole scene bringing her a sense of serenity after such a crazy day. And with their backs to her were her close friends who all sat around their usual table in the late autumn evening. She called out in greeting as she approached.

“Evening guys.”

“Aurora!”

“How's it going man.”

“Ay boss, remove the blood and you wash up pretty good!”

Aurora let out a light laugh as she hugged Roxanne and Ben, while Tyrell gave her a bro hug, something that made her quite happy since it was their usual greeting.

She took off her coat and sat down on the wicker sofa next to Ben, glancing over to Tyrell who was sitting in an armchair to the right as he addressed her.

“So, thought I’d come over and bring you some of the good shit. You man seemed to be quite stressed yesterday morning, so I got my guy to get us some Cali strains. Helps that Ben also asked me to grab us some as well. You need some time to properly chill, so I got you.”

Aurora raised an eyebrow as she saw a couple of particularly large pots of weed on the table, picking one up and smelling it.

“I appreciate it, Tyrell, seriously. Now, I guess this is Silver Bubble right? What about the others?”

Ben leaned back and took a large puff of the lit spliff that was held between his fingers, also looking at Tyrell with interest in his answer.

“Let me check… yeah, the blue one you have is Silver Bubble, Laughing Buddha in the yellow one, and Ben's favourite Stardog in the gold one.”

Aurora gave a sage nod as she picked up an empty grinder and started to get to work rolling herself a joint.

Roxanne being the most sober of the group started folding a roach for her as she asked the important question the rest had either forgotten or become too distracted to ask.

“So, how did the meeting go? Did… Gareth was it? Did he accept your explanation? Or tell you to go to an asylum?”

Aurora let a smirk play on her lips as she spun the grinder's handle, frowning at how sticky the weed was.

“Thankfully, yes. I showed him an illusion of a wyvern attack we encountered on a trip in the past. I do feel a little bad since he seemed to be a few steps away from soiling himself, poor guy. But after that, the conversation went quite well. At the very least the revelations I gave him helped increase his confidence in my previous quite questionable seeming decisions.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Roxanne gave a satisfied smile as she passed Aurora a rolled roach and a paper, taking the spliff Ben was offering in return for her effort.

“Here. I'm glad things went well. I can't imagine how stressful it must all be, I know I would have lost my mind already. But what's this about an illusion?”

Ben with an intrigued expression leaned forward and gestured to Aurora.

“Huh? Didn’t you know, she is the female super wizard Gandalf. Something like an illusion is but a mere trifle! But seriously, if you can create illusions, show us something good.”

Aurora let out a sigh of exasperation as she glanced at Ben, and seeing the unconcealed excitement shared by Tyrell to his side, she caved into the eager demand.

“Fine, but pass me the pen over there. I used a fair bit of my limited mana over my meeting earlier, and since the atmospheric mana here is so low at the moment, I have only recovered a modest amount, so you get one short illusion.”

Using the pen Ben passed over to pack the weed properly into her joint from its open end, Aurora tapped the finished joint on her lips as she thought about what to show.

“Well, I could show you a view of the Caelesian Empire’s capital, or maybe a scene of the southern desert nation? Maybe a distant view of the Draconic Mountains? I even had a chance to visit the closed-off elven nation so could show you what little of what their forests look like or even what their so-called world tree is like?”

Roxanne being the voice of reason was the first to speak up, her tone contemplative.

“Well, we are all going to be visiting the empire within the week right? So we may as well pick another place. The world tree sounds quite interesting, the same with the draconic mountains. What do you say, Tyrell?”

Tyrell who was puffing on his own joint let the inhaled smoke out of his nose with a hum.

“I'm down for some dragons. Aurora, don’t suppose us man can go kill us one? Grand Retribution Paladin StormBane, the dragon slayer… has a sick ring to it don’t you think.”

Roxanne rolled her eyes while Ben looked at Tyrell deep in thought, all waiting for Aurora to answer.

“Well, I advise against attacking any of the dragons from the Draconic Mountains, after all, they are not mindless monsters, and we needn’t bring the ire of their nation upon us. That said, there are some rogue dragons around the continent who were exiled from the Draconic Mountains, usually for bad crimes. We might be able to go and hunt one of them once we are strong enough, but it will take some time before we can be even remotely considered ready.”

Tyrell let out a disappointed snort as he crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair as he rebuked Aurora’s statement.

“Ay man, Ain’t no scaly lizard boy gonna stop me. I’ma clap mand head so hard he be seeing as many stars as I am from this joint.”

Aurora and Roxanne shared an exasperated glance while Ben spoke up, passing his lighter to her.

“Damn, you're already that high and you're only on your second? And I thought your tolerance was supposed to be as high as mine! But yeah, sign me up right up, I'm down for dragon hunting. Just a shame there will be no watch tower to snipe it from for our first encounter.”

Aurora gave a little giggle at the reference as she let a cocky smirk play on her lips, the memory of her earlier gained bragging rights suddenly brought to the front of her mind by the song currently being quietly played on the speaker.

“If you want, I can invite BigZ to the hunt as well.”

Tyrell and Ben both looked at Aurora with looks of confusion till she pointed at the speaker, causing the light of recognition to spark in their eyes.

“Yo, I didn't realise BigZ played Caelus, that's wicked”

Aurora dismissively waved her hand as if Tyrell's statement was nothing important.

“He does, I surprisingly ran into him at the border, and Ash and I ended up partying up with him for a little while. We even spent the night camping. It was quite fun.”

Tyrell and Ben's faces immediately showed expressions of shock, quickly replaced by envy.

“Dude, for real? That’s crazy, I wish I had joined you for the trip. You find out anything interesting about him?”

Aurora puffed her chest out a little more than usual as she lit her joint and inhaled with a satisfied smile.

“Well, for one he didn't even prepare for the trip. He didn't even have food! But nothing major to be honest. We mainly spoke about the game, and he had two random travelling companions so the conversation was not really about him.”

Tyrell let out a disappointed sigh, slumping his shoulders in defeat.

“Well, I doubt man’s going to brag about bapping a wasteman in the ‘ead now, especially to a pretty little white girl.”

Aurora and Ben let out a snort of laughter at the weird mix of irony and truth of the statement while Roxanne cut into the conversation again.

“Ok, bragging rights aside, I want to see this illusion before Aurora gets too high and shows us something weird instead…”

The rest of the evening went on in a similar fashion as the four friends relaxed for a while, laughing the evening away as Aurora enjoyed the nostalgic atmosphere that brought a sense of normality and relief that she had forgotten since the world was turned upside down.