Liana ran down the alien streets again, hand in hand with Inaya and thus still invisible to non-Nummerfa. Three different heartbeats were beating quite hard and fast, but other than that, the three of them moved as quietly as they could. They turned into the first side street, dodging all the alien junk, and kept going. When they had gone down a few blocks and were sure they were far enough from the warehouse, they dove together into the first open building they saw to finally come to a stop. There Liana and Lun released Inaya's hands and all three looked at each other without saying a word for a long time.

Liana felt her breath slowly calm, and knew that the others were thinking the same as she was, even without using any telepathy. They had been very lucky. “What would he have done if he had discovered us?” Liana asked finally. Luna answered first. “I don't know, but nobody is supposed to know we're here. And they are much more dangerous than we thought. We can no longer rely on the laws of the nawa of Nuanderra here.” Liana nodded gloomily and looked at Inaya, who looked very different in her black combat outfit. “But from now on we can act as normal as possible and be visible. We didn't disguise ourselves for nothing." she added. The other two were clearly not in the mood for that thought, but they nodded affirmatively anyway.

Liana looked at both of her companions and the clothes they were now wearing, and realised that was not quite at ease with the dark atmosphere their clothes radiated. It reminded her of dark dystopian movies, non-human armies, loss of hope, and above all, a threatening unreality. A very different unreality that was much closer to home than the alien otherness they had been bathing in for almost two days now. Their opponents may have been a lot more modern and at the same time more alien than the Tolkienian orcs she had previously thought of, but something told her that that type of one-dimensional evil monsters with not too high intelligence might have been a lot easier to fight against than highly intelligent ones like Nummerfa with all their psychic gifts.

And suddenly she realised that there was something else wrong with their outfit: unfortunately they hadn't gotten their hands on weapons yet, if only to make the picture complete. But otherwise, as far as they knew, they looked as perfect Onnobolda rebels now, and shouldn't be too conspicuous if they were out in the open. At least that's what they hoped anyway. In the building they had a drink from their canteen, and sat for a while to discuss. Things were starting to get serious now, that was clear. It was important that they get as far as possible into the Onnobolda's base without being noticed in order to find out what that movement was actually up to.

There were signs that their plans were bigger and worse than anything the Council of councils could have imagined. What did they even know about evil anyway? Liana feared they were completely ignorant of it in their world that hadn’t known wars since their history had begun, but the Onnobolda certainly weren’t so naive. But what were they even doing? Why was the area where they were active and in which they had left their marks so big? How long had they been here if the valley they’d seen was already completely colonised with Japanese knotweed and tiny alien animals? Or had those come from somewhere else? And how was it that, apart from the pure alien zokas, they had mainly encountered life forms from the world of Liana herself, instead of Nuanderran species, not only life forms by the way, but also all kinds of stuff.

Why did Nuanderrans, who detested her world so, have jeeps and modern firearms here, in addition to their own gear and to their clearly Kavanderran technology too? Surely the Drotnira who hated people of our world as monsters from the depths hell itself would never team up with the same Gorchbolds they hated, and buy weapons and vehicles from them, would they? Was the man in the jeep even a Tilliander from Nuanderra? And where were the other Nuanderrans? Except for the one man in his jeep who had seemed a human, all they had seen was Drotnira. By the way, what was the 'STC', whose logo in European letters could be seen in several places here and there? There were more questions than answers, and for some reason no one even felt like asking them now. It wasn’t the time to speculate, but to find actual answers, and they could only do that if they went further, and could get inside the giant ziggurat-like building. And now they looked like Onnobolda rebels themselves, so in theory it should work to walk around here. If they acted like nothing was wrong, and just walked into the base, and got some luck.

They came out of the building, and now they walked on for all to see, as if they were part of the Onnobolda who belonged here, and knew very well what they were doing. Except they had no idea what the onnobolda were doing and Liana didn't even speak the language the Numberfa used, let alone the weird speech of the Drotnira. But it seemed to work: after a short walk they passed three guards again, and they didn't look up to them. Liana's heart was pounding in her throat again, but they made it anyway. They had passed the first test! Now they had to get to the main building in this way and see what was going on there. The street they'd been following came out at a 60-degree angle to the main road they'd been avoiding for quite some time now.

I

Inaya gestured to wait rather than turn right into the main road, so they continued to just before the corner. “There is someone there, and we’re also approaching a heavy gate. And it's not just Drotnira this time.” Lun promptly took his weird binoculars, which apparently were also a periscope of sorts, and bent them to look behind the corner. "Indeed. The main road ends at a kind of gate in a huge city wall. Two Drotnira and two taller people stand guard at the gate. I think they are humans.” Inaya looked too, and seemed to scan the environment at the same time. “No, I can feel that there are Hmana somewhere around, behind the wall I think. But these are definitely Nummerfa. They're wearing the black clothes that me and Liana have, so that matches our look. How many did you see, Lun?” He took the binoculars. “Two Nummerfa then, a man and a woman, and two Drotnira.” he replied.

"You look too." she said to Liana and passed the looking glass. “Two of those little guys, and a man and a woman in our type of clothes. Black clothes and several different weapons from different worlds.” She paused for a moment to take a closer look. “No, wait! A third one. A woman. But she's supposed to be invisible, isn't she?" Inaya nodded. “She’s in the side dimension indeed, so normally invisible to Hmana and Drotnira, which are their allies here. That's strange." She grabbed Lun with her hand so that Lun could see in the invisible dimension too. “Using binoculars on the side dimension is exhausting to my eyes.” He said as he quickly released her hand after looking briefly, but he continued to stare through the binoculars. “But she is indeed completely invisible when I'm not in the side dimension. And you can see them, Liana, Without any help?” She nodded. “Just like I saw Inaya, the first time at the industrial site.” Lun remained astonished. “You are very skilled for a human. It was a good idea to take you with is.” Liana swallowed for a moment. She really didn’t like that way of thinking about her.

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They paused for a moment to discuss. "What are we going to do now?" asked Liana. “I'm afraid we have to go through this gate. Their base is clearly within the city walls. It's still a long way between the city walls and the main building too.” Lun indicated, but Liana had a different idea. “What if we bridged those city walls in a different way?” Her fingers pointed to the top of the wall, as if suggesting they could climb over it. “I strongly doubt that would work.” Lun said. “I see a spark field above the wall. There has to be some kind of technology or magic protecting the wall.” Can't you turn it off, Inaya? “I don't even know what kind of energy they use, so no. And we would certainly be noticed.” Liana went through all the options in her head but saw no more opening. “So we really have to go through the gate? Past the guards?” Inaya nodded. “I fear that’s the only way. That wall is impenetrable, if we don't want to do something very noticeable to get beyond it. And those sparks are a very strong field indeed. Electricity as you would call it, mixed with something else.” Their only option was the gate and if there were other gates, they would probably be guarded just as hard, and it wasn't even sure if there were any.

Because they were tired from all the walking, they first sat down behind the corner for a while to eat and rest. They were still quite a distance from the city wall, and apparently they were at a safe distance from the guards so as not to be noticed. Or else their disguises worked well enough. “Lunch break first.” said Liana. "She is right." said Lun. Inaya brought out a number of acorn flour biscuits, dried fruits and a sort of salad of small peas and Nuanderran leaves. It was always a strange experience to eat the food of the oak forest, so full of life, and much less polluted than the metropolis in Oranderra, here in a dead world that had once completely poisoned itself to total extinction of all life. But the food and spring water did Liana good, and in a way they gave her more hope. What did the 'people' actually eat here? And why had they come from a world so beautiful and alive and healthy to this ugly unhealthy ghost world? How could anyone feel better here than in the forests and mountains of Nuanderra?

After a short meal, everything was packed. They looked closely to see if there wasn't something on them that might make them stand out, and then they moved forward in hopes of success. It was a long stretch of the main road in plain sight before they reached their destination, but slowly and casually the three of them walked toward the gate of eight. While they were still on their way, a jeep drove by, with a man in a STC camouflage suit at the wheel. Was it the same one they'd seen before? Liana wasn't 100% because she didn't get a good look at the man the first time, but the chances seemed high. The jeep passed them without even paying attention, so apparently their disguise seemed to work! Let's hope it worked with the guards on the city walls too, she thought.

Liana knew the Nummerfa might sense her insecurity, but she couldn’t control her feelings, so she still started to get nervous as they got closer to the guards. The vehicle had stopped at the sentry post and the driver was conferring with the drotniril guards. The city wall they came closer and closer to was really huge, very massive and built of some dark material that looked solid and impenetrable. Plus, as Lun had pointed out earlier, there was some spark field on the top that looked formidable. Indeed, you probably wouldn't get in through there without getting roasted or worse. Besides, there was indeed no other gate as far as they could see. And this one, as they'd noticed before, was heavily guarded. The two Drotnira stood to one side, with a typical guard booth like Liana had seen before. One was holding some alien weapon, the other was carrying some kind of axe, and they also carried all kinds of weapons from different worlds, some were recognisable and some unknown. The Nummerfa, on the other hand did have weapons, but they didn't keep them ready in their hands. The mysterious invisible fifth watch stood there silently, unnoticed. She had no weapons, but seemed to be watching everything very closely. Liana had the idea that even the Drotniril guards didn't realise she was there, and that the man from the STC with his vehicle, who was now charging things, didn't know it either.

The vehicle was still stationary as the man loaded an apparent box from the waiting booth, and replaced another box in its place. Apparently this was also part of his round. After he had delivered everything, he drove on, watched a little suspiciously by all five guards. Apparently it wasn’t just the Drotnira here that had a distrust of him. Was he really an Orranderran? And if not, what was he doing here? And why else did they have jeeps and firearms if there weren't people from her own world? Liana wasn't asking the questions now, but knew the other two were probably thinking the same thing.

“Be normal, if they ask something let me talk!” Inaya said wordlessly as they came closer. They walked on without any of the three having any idea what the exact procedure was here. Liana had forgotten not to be nervous and mostly closed her head and her feelings off. Strangely enough, Inaya was very small and vulnerable in the Onnobolda's strange combat attire, but Liana reminded herself that this little girl was a lot more powerful than she appeared, and that if they got into trouble, she would probably do something unexpected to keep the three of them alive, like suddenly moving everybody to another world or something like that. She had almost forgotten that Inaya had mainly refrained from standing out and staying incognito until now, but once that would no longer be so important - once they were discovered or so - she could bend dimensions and probably also defend herself with thought communication and possibly other previously magical techniques she'd never heard of.

So they probably weren't in serious danger in the long run at all, or that was what she hoped for anyway, and the other two in the background still seemed to be sure of that. And still there was that nagging feeling that both Inaya and Lun were too naive, and that their enemies should not be underestimated. Besides, it wasn't their world that was threatened by the Onnobolda, it was hers, and it was her kind that they might be planning to wipe out…