And so, much to her own surprise, Liana found herself being part of a meeting of the 'Friends of Oranderra'—her own world!—in the Nuanderran oak forest of Mirato-Kwoburuë, in the home of the venerable councillor Inaya, who was actually just her new friend from another world that she’d been cooking fried rice for recently. Strange how those things work sometimes. Only a few hours ago many of the key words of this whole discussion wouldn't even have made sense to her, but now with more explanation she was able to understand the gravity of the situation very well. Her own situation, of course, was still ridiculous: Somehow she'd taken a wrong turn into an in-between world after a failed attempt at dimension-folding when she'd been trying to avoid Ellen and her bullies, and she had been picked up there and brought to Nuanderra. And now she was in an official meeting about a war between parallel worlds or something like that, with conversation partners who seemed to naturally regard her as the representative of her whole world and respected her as someone with powerful superpowers, who might play an important role in such a war.
She had realised soon after arriving in Inaya’s forest house that she wouldn't be able to go straight back to school right now, so she had to let the whole idea of school be to make the best of the situation and focus on what was going on here. There was a lot to take in here, and a lot to enjoy beyond not being at school, beginning with the location itself and its unique energy. She had dreamed a lot about adventures over the years, but to have them in real life was something she was quite ambivalent about. But still there was a part of her that certainly didn't want to go back home, not until she knew the finer points of the 'great need' that caused the various high councils of this world to meet. Also because it seemed her own world had something to do with it, and perhaps it was even something that the fate of her kind might depend on. It really was that kind of story that she’d ended up in. Joris really wouldn’t believe her.
She drank another glass of the flower drink in one gulp and sat down on something that looked like a chair, to recover from all the new information she’d just heard. She stared furiously at the tiny wizal-bedstraw flowers in the carafe as if they were to blame for everything, but they said nothing in return.
Councillor Inaya still looked more impressive in her own world than the girl Liana remembered from the evening at her house. She wore the luminescent jewel on her chest and the crown-like ring of living green on her head. If she had encountered this person at the industrial estate, she would probably have reacted very differently than she had with the virtually invisible and more low-profile Inaya that she’s met. But she was still the same person who had offered her friendship, and that friendship was still there. And apparently all of these strangers, who weren't lightweights in their world, seemed to regard her at least partially as their equal, which also took some getting used to too. In her own world, she was used to being invisible and barely noticed.
“Like you all know, I am back from the council of Nummerfa, and also from the council of councils of Nuanderra itself, which came together afterwards given the circumstances. And I've heard things that aren't right. Things that are important for all the nawa of Nuanderra, but also for our young traveller here, and for all the nawa of her world. Or at least for all Hmana-orr!” Liana listened in silence. “I will first explain the situation to her, because there is a lot that she doesn’t know. It’s not so easy to explain. But there is a fraction of Nuanderrans who want to conquer Oranderra, or have even worse plans than that, and they’re called the Onnobolda. Officially they say they want to free all worlds from the shadow of Oranderra. Their plans once started from the baro-tentue in the empty in-between world, when it wasn’t a ruin yet, and then it ended in an actual battle, in which the Onnobolda were defeated and we all hoped that was the end of them. We had also thought for a long time that they were just trying to spread their opinions among the residents of Nuanderra, but apparently there is still much more going on than that. We know now that they’re building an army in Kavanderra, which means they are probably preparing some kind of attack."
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Akhina nodded as if this was something he had expected, but Lun seemed startled, and Liana could hardly follow what she was talking about. "So, what is Kavanderra supposed to be? This world is Nuanderra, and mine is Oranderra, isn't it? How many worlds are there like that?" She asked. "A lot I suppose, but most of them unreachable and unlivable for humans, as they are for other nawa from our worlds. Oranderra and Nuanderra are both related worlds with mostly the same species of plants, animals and nawa that evolved slightly differently. Kavanderra is a completely different story, and another kind of world, where the nawa and everything have long since died out. It’s a dead world covered mostly with huge ruins of completely alien cities, except for where there’s seas of burning acid. A world with a very different sun and stars too in fact. But gravity and the atmosphere are similar to those of our worlds, so in theory we should be able to live there. In reality no one ever goes there because it is said that there is a curse on that world even worse than the shadow of Oranderra."
Lun nodded in agreement. “Kavanderra is the world where even the dead and the cursed demons won't go. As far as we know there are no plants and no animals. The world is partly melted to glass, because the inhabitants who lived there long before all history here started began to believe that they could use the power of the stars for warfare. That's how they wiped themselves out, together with all other life. The yam-healers once had an initiation where a special healer had to go there to get artefacts with special properties, but few ever did that. The dead cursed world instils great fear in our people.”
Liana found these different stories a bit contradictory. "What are those Nuanderrans of your Onnobolda faction looking for there then ? I thought I understood that in your traditions you wanted to shield your world from us, because we were the demonic Gorchbolds? Then why would anyone want to conquer our world? And those old alien guys from Kavanderra don't seem kosher to me either." "It's much worse than that,Liana. The old Kavanderrans had less soul than our nawa. But they also lived much longer ago. Long before the Exodus from Oranderra to Nuanderra, maybe long before they were two separate worlds. They went extinct hundreds of thousands of years ago or longer. They were in no way related to the nawa of our worlds, or to any creature we know here, but they had developed a high and dangerous level of both technology and magic. They were smaller than humans, and had eyes without white, no nose, and hands and feet with four fingers, but most of the time they were completely dressed in strange suits that contained strange weapons. How those things work, no one knows. But it seems that the Onnobolda now use their world as a base, and they’re probably preparing an attack on Oranderra from there."
“But who are those Onnobolda then?” Liana asked. “People who don’t like your kind. A number of Nummerfa, and a group of Drotnira from the mountains, and possibly other nawa who apparently want revenge for the injustice that was done to our nawa in primordial times when we left your world, or probably more for certain mythical interpretations of that story that they have. They have already used violence against other nawa in the time of the baro-tentue, where they lured people of your world into annihilation. They themselves blame the Gorchbolds, but it was they themselves who killed other nawa, not only Hmana-orr but eventually in the other Nummerfa as well. It was a big disaster. Nawa killing nawa in Nuanderra. That goes against everything.” Liana felt like Akhina was a bit uneasy about this story, but she knew it would be distracting now to ask why. “But what exactly do they want? And why? Why should they meddle with my world?” Inaya shook her head. “We don't quite know yet. All we know is that they exist, and that they're in Kavanderra now, probably building an armed force there. What exactly they plan to do with it, and when, is a mystery. But it probably isn't very pretty. And the future of your species, and of all life in your world, may well depend on the answer to that question…”