Arriving at the hill next to Whitebranch, Kelsey glanced around and saw that there was a small group of traveling merchants heading in the direction of the plains who were now staring at her, their mouths hanging open in surprise as they saw her appear from thin air.
They were only about twenty meters away and were able to see her very clearly in the early-afternoon sun.
She quickly identified the group and saw that only two of them were above gold rank, with the highest leveled person being level one hundred twenty-six.
“Sorry folks, just here to visit my brother!” Kelsey said as she took off at a light jog in the direction of the city.
Their eyes followed her as she passed, not in fear, but curiosity. From their perspective, a woman wearing a black gilded cloak, fancy armor, and a fancy weapon appeared from nowhere directly in front of them. She could imagine that would be a somewhat unsettling event for most people in this part of Cardonna.
Choosing to ignore the awkwardness, Kelsey quickly got out of their line of sight before calling back one of her consciousnesses that was monitoring her domain. As she did, Thadius’ location was instantly known to her, and she was able to find him an instant later.
He was standing inside what she assumed must be his office at the center of town working on some paperwork.
Smiling to herself, she activated her warp, appeared outside his office door and knocked softly.
“Come in!” Thadius yelled through the door.
Kelsey opened the door dramatically, putting as much flair and exaggeration into the action as possible. “Hello my darling brother! I hath returned!” she said, bowing towards him with a sarcastic flourish.
“Kel! Welcome back! How was your trip?” Thadius asked as he stood up and walked towards Kelsey to give her a quick hug.
Kelsey laughed. “We have a lot to talk about, as always.”
“Of course we do.” Thadius said, smiling.
“Is everyone ready for the move?” Kelsey asked expectantly.
“Yep. I have already given my company away to my second in command, Dan. He’s a good guy and I trust him completely. Claire and the kids are also ready, so we should be good to go whenever.” Thadius answered as he pulled his coat off the rack and motioned for Kelsey to exit the room with him.
They started walking back towards his house, where Kelsey could see Claire and the kids reading a book together.
“So, anything interesting happen that you can talk about publicly?” Thadius asked.
“I met the Queen. That was pretty cool.” she leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “Lisa is so much like Owen’s mom it’s crazy. She has that same kind of sarcastic excitement; the Queen is just slightly more reserved.”
Thadius regarded Kelsey's words appreciatively and nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah? I met her a couple decades ago and she was nothing like that. I met her after helping build a large, six story tavern in Fairlight, she was incredibly serious and formal with me the entire time."
“That makes sense, she admittedly had already heard about me from her sons, and a... mutual acquaintance, so we were instantly on somewhat friendly terms.” Kelsey said, her voice making it clear that she didn't want to go into specifics about said acquaintance.
Before Thadius could interject, Kelsey continued with a bit of excitement. "Alana really is pretty cool though, I see why Owen and Greg have so much respect for her. Plus, she clearly doesn't care that they abdicated their positions as princes either. She really was quite down to earth."
Thadius smiled. “It’s insane to me how comfortably you speak about the most powerful woman in Cardona. Like you two are friends or something.”
“Well, we spent basically a full day together, so I suppose it makes sense.” Kelsey answered noncommittally. "And I guess we kind of are friends, honestly."
“What in the world did you get up to that the Queen spent an entire day with you?” Thadius asked in surprise.
“That’s one of those things I can’t talk about yet, but I promise the answer is worth it.” she answered happily. "You'll find out soon enough."
Thadius nodded his head in understanding as he eyed Kelsey's armor, weapon, and cloak. “Got it. By the way, that’s some nice new armor… I take it you found some Mythril finally?”
“Yep. Pretty sweet material. Hard to use though.” she answered as she summoned a Mythril coin and flicked it towards him.
Thadius caught the coin and inspected it closely. “I can imagine, this stuff is chock full of mana.”
“Oh, you have no idea.” Kelsey said sardonically.
“That bad?”
“Yeah... But in better news, we did successfully get the guild moved and everything. I had no idea, but the guild has well over a hundred members. Moving them to the new location was a tricky process to say the least.” Kelsey said.
“I can’t wait to hear about it. By the way, are you planning to tell Claire about everything once we get to the forest? It’s been frustrating keeping some of this stuff from her.” Thadius asked defeatedly.
Kelsey nodded. “Yeah, she’s going to find out anyways, might as well clue her in myself.”
“Speaking of Claire, did she pass into Immortality yet?” Kelsey asked as casually as she could.
Thadius grinned knowingly. “No… I asked her to wait but couldn’t explain why.”
By the look on his face, Kelsey could tell that Thadius knew exactly what she had been planning.
“How did you figure it out?” Kelsey asked with a small grin on her face.
“Well… after you beat the yeti king and you came back with the class ritual object, Lisa said she had been studying a way to make the Mageblood ritual work. I saw it on your face then, you already knew how, but you weren’t sure it would actually work. Didn't want to get our hopes up. Am I right?” He asked, clearly already knowing the answer.
Kelsey nodded. “Yeah, exactly right. So that means Claire can get to do the ritual before her advancement? She is going to get such a huge boost…” Kelsey said wistfully.
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“Yep. It’s going to be crazy.” Thadius agreed. “So, when do I get mine?”
“The moment we get to the forest. You and Claire both.” Kelsey answered honestly. Getting everybody she knew access to the Mageblood body was something she was looking forward to. Once they had the bodies, it would be so much easier for them all to fight and progress. Plus, she wouldn't have to worry nearly as much about their safety.
After that discussion, they walked back to Thadius’ house mostly in silence. Kelsy could tell that Thadius was seriously thinking about the Mageblood body and what he knew about it.
Kelsey had always had a sneaking suspicion that he hated fighting as much as he did because he didn’t want to get injured and lose his legs again. It was a completely understandable fear. His injury had basically destroyed his quality of life on Earth, she couldn’t imagine how bad it would be living an Immortal life crippled by a dumb combat injury.
It was a worry that I'm sure meeting Abby hadn't lessened for him in any way. The very idea of living hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of years in pain or with an incurable disability would be a frightening concept for most people, let alone someone who had already suffered from one then been cured.
As they arrived at the house and Thadius and Kelsey walked in the door, the children, David and Lorie exploded into pure joy and screamed her name excitedly, begging 'Aunt Kelsey' to play with them and make them fly.
“Sorry kids, I can’t. Maybe later. For now, I have to talk to your mom and dad. Why don’t you give us a few minutes?” Kelsey said guiltily.
They were disappointed, but nodded their heads and ran into the living room to play.
“Hey Kel, long time no see.” Claire said as she pulled Kelsey into a hug.
“It’s good to see you, Claire. Are you ready for the move?” Kelsey asked.
Claire groaned loudly. “You have no idea. I am so tired of living in the city. I cannot wait to get out there."
Kelsey smiled. “Good, I’d like to leave soon if possible. How quickly can you guys get ready?”
“I’m ready now. I have everything packed and ready to go. We’re just going to keep the house and everything else here. No need to sell it, not like we really need the money living in the forest.” Claire said as she motioned to the spatial ring on her finger when she said they were already packed.
“Thadius? Are you good to go?” Kelsey asked.
“Yep. I’ve got everything ready as well. Plus, it's not like we’re that far away if we absolutely need to come back into the city.” he answered.
“Alright, grab the kids and we’ll leave now. I’m excited to show you guys around the forest.” she said.
Over the next ten minutes Thadius and Claire wrangled the kids and got them ready for the trip. They had apparently explained to the kids that they were going to be moving, but they didn’t exactly explain how.
“Alright kids. I’m going to wrap you up in a bubble of mana and teleport you. Don’t freak out, it’s completely safe.” Kelsey said reassuringly as the entire family was finished preparing for the teleport.
The kids nodded their heads bravely. Kelsey could tell they were nervous, but they were both trying very hard not to show it.
Kelsey activated her teleport, and they arrived inside the office of her cabin a few seconds later.
Teleporting such short distances is so damn easy…
As they arrived, the kids exploded into an excited chorus, screaming about how cool teleportation was, and how they wanted to teleport again. Kelsey, along with their parents humored them and Kelsey teleported the kids around the room for a few minutes until David started getting dizzy.
Over the next few minutes Kelsey brought them out of the room, introduced them to Bud, and showed them to their rooms. Both of the children got their own master bedrooms, mostly because Kelsey hadn’t had the foresight to make any non-master bedrooms.
After that was done, Kelsey heard a knock at the door. Since the entire house was warded against domains, she couldn't see who it was, but she figured it had to be a friend if they were knocking.
Waving her hand, Kelsey used spatial magic to open the door.
As the door opened, her domain spread around the forest and in it she saw one extremely excited Lisa practically vibrating with energy.
“We’re up here Lisa, come on up!” she shouted through the house.
Lisa quickly entered the cabin and raced up the stairs towards Kelsey and Thadius’ family.
As she arrived, Kelsey put up her hand, motioning for her to wait.
“One second Lisa, I see that you’re excited, but I need to explain some stuff to Claire before we go any further. Can you watch the kids for about three seconds while we take a quick trip through my portal and get some stuff done?” Kelsey asked, pleadingly.
Based on Lisa’s reaction to this question, Kelsey would have thought she had just murdered Lisa’s childhood puppy. She immediately looked incredibly sad, but Kelsey was eighty percent sure it was mock sadness.
“Fine, three seconds, no longer. I realllllly wanna talk to you.” she said pleadingly.
Kelsey chuckled. “I promise.” She then turned to the kids. “Alright kids, stay with Ms. Lisa for a little bit, we’ll be right back.”
She then opened a portal to her dimension and motioned for Thadius and Claire to enter.
Claire immediately seemed nervous. It was clear that she had little experience with portals and other dimensions.
Thadius coaxed his wife into entering. “Just trust me, I promise you’re going to love it.” he said soothingly.
Once they were inside, Kelsey sat Claire and Thadius down and explained everything that had happened to her since coming to Anoura. She skipped over everything involving The Wardens, and she skipped over anything about her Parallel Thoughts skill. She did tell them about the teleportation itself, but she still needed to tell Gwen all about the skill, and she didn’t want to explain it twice.
As she was done, Claire asked a ton of questions on everything from saving the prisoners from Viscount Walter to what kind of person the Queen was. Kelsey answered them all patiently and made sure she was completely caught up. The conversation took over six hours between all of the explanations and questions Claire had, but once she was caught up it was like a weight had been lifted off Kelsey’s shoulders.
She hated keeping things from people.
Thadius seemed to feel the same way, excited that he could now talk about this kind of stuff with his wife.
After finishing the conversation, Kelsey summoned two of the Mageblood vials. They had both heard the story, and both knew more about the Mageblood bodies than anyone else she had given a potion to, so she simply gave them each a potion and let them take care of the rest.
Two puddles of blood cleaned up and ten hours of waiting later, Claire and Thadius were standing on the stone platform having just finished a quick spar to get used to their new attributes.
Both of them were out of their comfort zones in a physical spar such as the one they just did. Claire was a mage and alchemist without any physical enhancements. Thadius had two non-combat classes, and the one class he had with some combat uses was a stone mage class. That meant that neither of them was able to use anything from their normal arsenal due to Kelsey’s strict ‘no magic’ policy in her dimension.
“How does it feel you two?” Kelsey asked as they stepped off the platform and walked up towards her.
Claire flashed a huge smile. “Great. I haven’t felt this good in… maybe ever.”
“Yeah, it’s truly incredible. That regeneration is no joke.” Thadius said happily. “Can’t wait to try the magic part of it once we get out.”
“Speaking of getting out, why don’t we go relieve Lisa of her child watching duties?” Kelsey said as she waved her hand, opening a portal back to the real world.
All three of them quickly walked through the portal to find Lisa practically bouncing off the walls in excitement.
“Alright Lisa, what is it?” Kelsey asked.
“We all got classes like yours! All three of us!” Lisa shouted at Kelsey with pure excitement.
“Holy shit, really? Like no secondary or tertiary classes?” Kelsey asked, feigning surprise. She had, of course, expected exactly that outcome.
“Yes! Come on, you’ve got to see it!” Lisa said as she leapt off the balcony and landed on the floor below, running out the front door of the cabin in a burst of speed.
Kelsey looked at Thadius and his family. “This should be interesting.”