“Sir Albert?” Scrappy said after they were done eating. “What happened to you? Why are you so different now? I can see that you are trying to be normal, that I do, but you are changed.”

Albert inhaled loudly, turning to stare up at the far away stars. Here, in his soulspace where everything was possible, he wondered if their existence was as real as that of those in the world outside. Yes, he concluded, just as the people he brought in with him were real, just as the mountains around him were real. Just as a simulation was real to those living in it.

Then he realized that he had gone a long time without speaking again. A habit he needed to lose now that he was back in normal-time.

“I spent a long time alone, Scrappy.” He said, choosing to give her a short version of the events. He wasn’t sure himself about many of the things that he did and that happened to him, so he stuck to what he knew for sure.

Scrappy listened, and after a while Lina joined in as well. Albert went on with his narration, focusing on his feelings and thoughts, on his many tries, on his struggles and on the loneliness he felt after spending so much time trapped in frozen time.

Loneliness he was still feeling.

Two pair of arms wrapped themselves around him. He looked up, and saw that both Scrappy and Lina were hugging him.

“What, why?” He asked, confused.

Lina was the first to disentangle herself from him, and while Scrappy was still clinging to him tightly, she offered him a smile.

“You looked like you needed it. It’s the least we can do after all you did for us.”

It was his turn to be misty eyed. “Thank you.”

Then he ruffled Scrappy’s hair.

“Hey!” She protested.

Getting up, he grinned, “emotional time over, time to get going!”

With a snap of his fingers, they were back in the underground room.

“Aww,” Scrappy complained. “I liked the mountains.”

“We can go back later,” Lina said, “right Albert?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

He was still feeling like the world was too fast for him, but at least it was not overwhelming anymore. Telling his story meant that he had to talk for a long time, and interacting with the girls had sped up his recovery process bringing him almost back up to speed with how quickly events happened in the real world. He was ready to proceed.

“What do we do now?” Lina voiced the party’s concerns.

“Over there,” he pointed, and the dark corridor at the far end of the room lit up. Not with the yellow light of the sword, but with natural light as if the sun was shining down on it.

The room was wide, cluttered and brightly lit thanks to Albert’s Power. At the far end was a pedestal, and upon the pedestal was the core fragment they had been after. Neither the core nor the pedestal were, however, the main feature of the room. The honour went to a large circle of metal, with wires and capacitors running along its length, nestled against the far was behind thick blast doors. Albert plucked the core and turned to the metal gateway.

“That,” Albert said after removing the blast doors with his Power, turning them into colourful butterflies, “is the real prize.”

Scrappy giggled at the sight of so many colours.

“What is it?” Lina asked.

“An inactive portal. Remember when I talked about using a portal to cross the ocean? Well.”

A snap of his fingers and it was like they were staring at the surface of the ocean suspended vertically inside the hollow ring of metal.

“Stole the visuals from Stargate. Anyway, this is a portal to Erebus, original homeland of the elves before we humans fucked it up. The original plan was to spoof the connection and have it home onto the location of the Lair on the other end of the portal using a whole lot of complex math and rituals, but with my newfound Power I’m already done. Anticlimactic, isn’t it?”

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Lina looked confused. Scrappy was determined, but she didn’t look any less confused herself.

“I mean it about having too much Power. It robs the fun out of it.”

Something about Lina’s face told him that he overstepped some boundary. It took a moment, but then he realized that perhaps most of the ‘fun’ experiences he was referring to hadn’t been too fun for her.

He cleared his throat. “Right, as I was saying, the portal is ready. We just need to step through, locate the Lair, cross through another portal when we arrive there, and we should end up at Sitea. Easy. Any questions?”

Since there seemed to be no questions, he stepped through. Since he spoofed the connection, he appeared not on the other side of the portal, but somewhere within the Elvenhome valley on the planet Erebus. He scanned his surroundings as he waited for the girls to follow, a bit behind because they had never crossed through a portal before and were a bit spooked.

As he made out more and more details, something nagged at the back of his mind. Moments later Jeff spoke to him, confirming his hunch.

“This complicates things,” he said out loud right when the girls stepped through.

“What does?” Lina asked, taking in the forest all around them. Scrappy followed suit.

“The forest. I guess nature did find a way even after the shield surrounding the valley failed. It seems like the whole planet is a forest now.”

“Is it not a good thing?” Lina asked.

“Yeah, I thought plants were good! I didn’t like when there was too much smoke and bad air in Bastion, Sir Albert!”

Albert scratched his chin. “Normally yes, but remember when I told you that this planet was supposed to be inhospitable after we fucked it up? Which reminds me,” he snapped his fingers and got rid of his elven features, eliciting a gasp and a look from each of his companions. It should help later though. “Anyway, to answer your unspoken questions, look over there.”

They all looked up, following his outstretched hand. Lina gaped. “How can a tree grow so tall?”

On the other side of the valley was a tree. Not just a normal tree, but one so tall as to pierce the clouds, with a trunk so thick it could be mistaken for a mountain. The material it was made of was probably strong enough to build a space elevator with. Above, the crown of the tree was almost as wide as the whole valley. Beams of light pierced through the branches, but it was easy to see that they weren’t made of sunlight, but produced by the tree itself.

“The iperborea tree. It grew.”

“What is it?”

“Ah, nothing much.” Albert said with a dry laugh. “Just the holy tree of the elves. This means the place will be chock full of them, and they hate humans.”

***

They walked for a while, in silence. Each lost to their own thoughts. Some were more attentive to their surroundings, others were less so especially since someone like Lina lacked most of the tools to survey the forest anyway. Their walk towards where the Lair was supposed to be located, at the other end of the valley, was uneventful at first.

It didn’t mean that Albert wasn’t perfectly aware of who was following them. He saw them sense his arrival, and had been following their approach ever since. With his current level of power it was a trivial task, and it was only slightly more taxing to have Jeff also watch the location of all the other elves in the valley at all times.

Soon, when the elves were close enough, the others also became aware of the presence of something watching them. It went on for a while, until suddenly a whistle came from a tree close to the trail. The arrow that followed was far faster than any normal arrow, with a speed comparable to a bullet and a momentum that rivalled anti-tank ordnance.

Albert snatched it out of the air like he was plucking a flower. Then he looked beyond the arrow still held between his fingers and to the tree where it came from and uttered no words. He simply snapped his fingers.

Two things happened at once. All around the party of three, a solid shield of impenetrable energy sprang into being. At the same time, the tree Albert was looking at exploded with so much force that all the other trees in a several meter radius were instantly flattened, and the resulting boom echoed for minutes, the sound bouncing across the valley reflected by the cliff faces. The explosion threw dirt, branches, rocks and bits of mangled elf into the air, and all that hit the shield were incinerated on contact.

Silence followed for a few seconds, until Albert’s voice cut through it.

“Come out,” he said calmly, holding out his hand and making a gesture. “Come out now or I will kill you all.”

There was no movement for a few long, tense moments. Then a single elf came out of the forest, brandishing his glowing bow.

“Human,” the elf spat on the ground. “What makes you think that I, the great—”

The elf didn’t have time to say anything else before he exploded into a fine red mist.

“Anyone else?” Albert asked. “No? I take it you are ready to come out now?” He pointed at the trees, his hands sweeping through the crowns as he spoke. “Three there, two there, five over there. One behind the rock. You too, with the nocked arrow. Put it away. You too, over there.”

As he listed off every single would-be attacker, he noticed with a pleased expression that they were putting down their weapons. Gingerly the first one of them stepped forward, and the others followed suit.

“Albert, are you sure of this?” Lina asked when he dropped the shield.

He nodded. “The shield was mostly for scene. We are as safe as we would be behind its cover. Now,” he said, turning to the closest elf, “escort us to the tree, if you will.”

The woman nodded, feeling a bit better. Beside her, Scrappy’s mind was dominated by another emotion however. Seeing what Sir Albert could do, she felt utterly useless. An emotion that quickly turned into determination. She knew very well that her own power system was capable of much more than what it currently did. It was just a matter of figuring out how to bring all of its potential out, so that she could once again be on the same level as her beloved Sir Albert.