Taking in the sight of her statue, the sound of heavy footsteps and clinking armor caught her attention. The others mages and knights that were in the nearby planters or looking at the flowers. Some were quietly following a few Golems as they tended to the gardens. None of them were rushed, nor paid any attention to her. So she was curious why someone was coming over here in such haste. The spot she was in was rather cool with a slight breeze and the thick tree canopy overhead made a pleasant shaded area with light spots dotting here and there on the floor.

The foliage around the statue was a little overgrown with moss growing on the base of the tree, and vines growing along the base of the roots, but the statue was clean and well tended too. Taking in this peaceful scene for a moment longer, before it sounded like whoever was coming over had reached her to disturb her thoughts.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?!”

The voice sounded to be of a young man but was rude and hostile. Avery rolled her eyes in annoyance. She had hoped it would be someone friendly, but hopes were meant to be crushed. She half turned her body as she clasped her hands behind her back. With her head held high, she looked at the man behind her. She stared at him with an unwelcoming stare. She believed first impressions were important, but this man gave her a very bad one. Leaving her annoyed.

Her golden irises glowed gently in the shade, her skin which was pale as snow when she woke up, had already regained some color. Her rosy cheeks gave her a youthful appearance. She looked like a very elegant, but vibrant young girl. This scene stunned the young man who had approached her so angrily. Leaving him softly repeating his last word for a moment in surprise. Behind him was a knight in red heavy-armor, but without a helmet on.

The young man who had spoken to her was a dirty blonde man in deep crimson mage robes. He was fairly light skinned like he wasn’t often in the sun. He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t handsome. A fairly average face with blue eyes. The knight behind him sighed with a tired expression.

“Madam, pardon his words. Seeing as this is a restricted area, we’re going to need to verify who you are with.”

The knight who stood just off to the side behind the mage had short deep-black hair and equally dark eyes. He had dark-tanned skin and a face that looked like it’d seen many miles. Even with this aged appearance, he has handsome. A kind of gentlemanly feel to it. He only looked to be in his upper-thirties. When he spoke up, the young mage had snapped out of his momentary trance.

“Y-Yes! T-That’s right! The gardens have been r-reserved for the Two Dragons Empire for the week! I’ll need you to show me your credentials!”

The young mage had lost all his earlier bravado. The knight sighed tiredly as he had spoken up again. Avery also cooled her annoyance seeing the young man’s temper fizzle out. Her eyes switched from the mage to the knight, then back to the mage before she tilted her head in confusion.

“What do you mean? I didn’t know I needed permission from anyone to enter the Public Gardens.”

Avery turned her whole body towards the mage, but he didn’t know how to respond. He was captivated by her beauty. It wasn’t a beauty that could topple a nation, but it could be considered first-rate. The knight seemed disinterested though like he’d seen plenty, all of this wasn’t something she’d know. As the mage fumbled around to find the words to reply back, the knight noticed the statue behind her. It was the statue said to be of an Ancient god. Nowadays called the Hearth Keeper.

The woman was depicted in light armor and with a sword at her side. Hair tied back and a happy expression on her face, beautiful and heroic face. The common people knew very little about her, other than she had helped new adventures and others in their time of need back in the Primordial age. An age said to be littered with god-like beings. Though people in the royal family or positions of power knew more. They knew her by her real name and alias, Avery Baily; FemineFoxtrot.

The girl before him had an uncanny likeness of this Goddess. So much that he felt a chill run up his spine because the more he looked at her, the more features lined up with the accounts of her.

“Uh… I…”

While the Knight behind him was starting to piece together who she was, the young mage was starting to show his true colors, more so his lack of ability to deal with females. His face was red with embarrassment and couldn’t form a coherent sentence. After a few moments, Avery also caught on. At this point, she could only view him as a naive boy now. With a sigh, her noble posture crumbled under impatience.

Collecting herself for a moment, she huffed while placing her left hand on her hip. The other out towards the mage to shake his hand. She had a gentle smile that struck his heart. She wasn’t good at pushing back others when they were rude. She would rather make friends and have a good time.

“Well, let’s just start over with an introduction, like nice people. Hello, I’m Avery.”

The young mage was awe-struck by her smile as he fumbled to shake her hand. His palms were sweating, possibly from wearing such heavy robes. The Knight, on the other hand, had gone flush in the face. He was trembling silently in his armor. When she gave her name, it all came together. He was scared to think what would have happened if the man before him had offended her with his rude words earlier.

“A Primordial goddess is in front of us! I-I have to tell the Empress!”

“Y-Yes! My bad, where are my manners. Ha ah ah! I am Desmond Tungsten, third prince of the Two Dragons’ Empire. It’s a pleasure to meet you!”

On the other hand, the prince had already been felled by her. Truly she was a beauty, but the knight had been trained to keep his emotions, mainly lust, in check. That’s why he could remain calm. Meanwhile, the prince was only seventeen and barely exposed to beautiful women. He’s only ever had older women around him and those he considered family, never such a girl as this. He stepped up to the Prince’s back and whispered in his ear.

“Excuse me, my lord. I will leave you two alone. I need to speak with the Empress about something real quick..”

The oblivious Prince just uttered some mindless agreements and waved his hand to dismiss him. The prince was too smitten by her to care what his bodyguard did. With the knight running in the directions of the sky docks, the prince simply smiled innocently. Not one ounce of impure thoughts lingered in his head. Only wishes of getting to know this beautiful girl.

“Excuse my earlier words… Umm… If you’d like, I could give you a tour around here! My mother absolutely loves these gardens and it’s flowers. You know, there are plenty of flowers in this garden that don’t grow anywhere else?”

He finally managed to piece together a sentence. At first, she wanted to figure out what this “Prince” was talking about earlier, but after being told that most of these flowers had become extinct; She had no choice but to change whatever plans she had in mind. Desmond had held his arm out like he had been taught to when escorting noble ladies, but she simply brushed past him with a smile. For a moment he felt deeply embarrassed, but he saw that she hadn’t noticed his intention. Letting out a sigh of relief, he jogged after her to give her a tour.

Though he had intended to give her a personal tour around the Sky Gardens, it ended up with her giving him a tour. The first blow to his self-esteem was when he explained that picking the flowers was forbidden by the Three-Kings Pact. This was because the Stone Golems would attack anymore who picked them. He only was staring at the flowers talking when he noticed she had picked an almost translucent Frost Rose from one of the planters.

Just on the other side of the planter was a Stone Golem silently cleaning up the area. It’s blue-stone eye looked at her momentarily before letting out a cheerful chime. It then continued on like nothing had happened. This left him utterly stunned at this. Never had there been a recorded incident of this happening since this island had appeared six years ago!

“Uh… Lady Avery… How did you manage to pick that rose? Not just touching it, the Golem only chimed at you…”

Before he had been awe-struck and only could see a very beautiful lady around his age. Now though, he was on his guard. Just touching those flowers required novice mages to have specialized glows. Harvesting any of the plants or their products was strictly forbidden, more like impossible. The Golems here cared for the grounds like fanatics. Touching the plants would get their attention, but nothing would come of it. Harvesting though…

The few who had tried to before ended up split in two if they were strong, but most end up unidentifiable meat pies. From one hit…

“I just picked it naturally? Well, I guess I can’t really say that. Frost Roses require a cold resistant value of thirty or more. There are also other ways to harvest as well, but I don’t feel like explaining so much. There so many plants here, we’d never get through a tour if I had to explain them all…”

‘Frost rose? The Alchemist Association agreed to call them Ghostflowers…‘

That youthful passion for a beautiful girl had been doused thoroughly. Though he was young and inexperienced, he was still a royal prince. His put up his guard but tried to hide his weariness from her. Sadly for him, the change was noticed after she had walked off to the next planter…

♥

After being lead around for an hour, they only managed to tour one-fourth of the Flower Garden. There still was the Forest Garden, Mountain Garden and about two other gardens on the public side. Avery only stopped after noticing Desmond was sweating while having trouble keeping up. They were south of the large tree in the center of the Flower Gardens and they decided to rest their feet for a few minutes. Avery picked a circular gazebo that sat in the middle of a water lily pond.

Avery sat sideways on a bench with her legs crossed. She rested her head on her left rested her elbow on the short guardrails and stared out over the calm pond. There weren’t any of those mages with knights following them around. They mostly were congregated around the center were the most of the golems were working at the moment. Desmond sat across from her awkwardly. He didn’t know what to do, but he could tell she already noticed he was guarded against her.

He thought she was upset with him, leaving him in a bind. He thought of ways he could strike up a conversation, but he didn’t want to disturb this scene. In his eyes, it was a picture-perfect sight, worthy of being painted. He wished there was someone here to paint it. When he first spotted Avery from behind, he had been notified by the Royal Guards that an unknown person had appeared in the center of the garden. He was upset. He thought maybe another researcher from the last kingdom that had been here last week had hidden away to get more time on the island. He only saw her white hair and never really paid much attention to anything else. Only thinking words of reprimand, but when he saw her face…

Well that all lead up to this point. She seemed like she didn’t want to speak any more with him, but even though those clothes she made her look like an Adventurer, she looked elegant in it. Her hair draped down her back. Her bangs were brushed to the left just over her eyebrow and had a displeased expression. Just as he was pondering how to get back on her good side, she turned her attention to him

“You’ve been staring for a bit, you gonna say something or what?”

“… I was just trying to find what to say?”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

” Figure maybe an apology. A comment about the weather or maybe about my outfit?”

Desmond had a troubled expression as she spoke up, for it to turn serious as he though on what he said. She noticed and let out a defeated sigh. She was seriously mad at him, but he wasn’t a friend. It’s not like she could pout all afternoon. Of course, it would have been only a few minutes if he wasn’t such an awkward guy. Just from the little time they walked around, it was apparent how… Inexperienced he was with social norms, or maybe it was different from hers. She really didn’t care to pin it down now that she lost interest in getting more information from him.

“The… Weather is nice, isn’t it? How we’re above the clouds, yet we can breathe without the assistance of special tools. Plants grow normally and signs show that the Ruin city just past those stone walls was once a bustling city…”

Just when she had given up, he finally cracked open to the topic she was trying to coax out of him. She turned her body to face towards him while leaning back against the bench.

“Hoo? How long ago you figure that?”

“Well… We’re assuming maybe thousands of years ago. We don’t really have a grasp. See those tall white walls? Behind it is a large city, but we can’t get in. Those large Golems killed those who managed to climb up it. We aren’t too invested in whatever it those ruins though. The most valuable things are these plants. All the three major powers are trying to research ways to harvest them…”

Who knew that awkward young mage would instantly become a chatterbox when it came to such topics. In their terms, Old. All of it. Starting from the moment of creation, Players were viewed as “Demi-Gods”. Embarking on a wide range of adventures that kept the peace of the world. This was considered the Primordial Era. In Avery’s terms, it was the game Fallen Kingdoms. People such as Avery had been considered Gods themselves, able to create miracles such as destroying armies with a flick of their finger.

Which was true in a sense, but they were mob NPCs. The developers made it so the players would seem strong until they would face a mini-boss and on and on. From what she was told though, the followers of those players actually had recorded these feats and often spoke of them. These records were written down on magical paper that often barely last against the forces of time itself. Though it wasn’t much and just a generalization, he still had given her enough to get a hazy picture. Then he reached the end of it, the fall of the Primordial gods.

“Surprisingly enough, there aren’t many records left by these beings themselves. Like I said earlier, most records were left by their followers, but even then we were able to pinpoint the beginning of the end. They said there was this really powerful “God”. Most of them called this god Bailey or FemmeFoxtrot. I know, weird name, but it was a thing I guess in that time. Well, that’s beside the point, anyway. They all mention the fall of this God and called it the end of times.

After that, many things happened like more Demon Kings appearing, natural disasters striking and even these figures beginning to disappear slowly. Eventually, there were such few of these powerful people left, that the world was sent into a dark era. This gave birth to the God Alistair. After that, it slowly became what it is today.”

Avery ended up staring back over the pond’s water, digesting the large hunk of information dropped into her lap. She already knew that this Alistair had killed players with a plague, but she needed more details. How? was this in the game still or was this after this world became reality? Her brain was hurting from all this information just thrusted on her.

She wasn’t the smartest girl on the block. She gave up on trying to process it and let out another sigh she turned her attention back to Desmond who looked troubled and stopped talking. Her head tilted in confusion as he just mouthed an apology to her. She was going to ask, but she quickly got her answer.

“O my, Little Desmond has a lady friend? Why haven’t you introduced her to me?”

Avery could feel a little bit of hostility in her voice as a woman who appeared to be in her later thirties appeared. Her face had a soft expression, but one that felt a little fake. Like a mask. She wore a dress similar to an 18th century Rococo style dress in pure white. Two girls in maid outfits trailed behind her along with three Knights in a similar fashion to the one that left the prince an hour earlier.

She walked across the small wooden bridge into the gazebo along with one maid but left the others waiting at on land waiting in a neat line

” Your personal guard told me that you had an… Interesting guest with you.”

” M-Mother! Weren’t you at the docks? Why are you here?”

“Like I said, your guard told me about your guest so I-“

“I’m not a guest. “

“Imprudent! How dare you speak to Empress Maria with such insolence!”

The maid following behind Empress Maria spoke up loudly, anger could be seen on her face, but Avery only scoffed at the maid before turning her eyes towards the Empress. The Empress’s mouth twitched with annoyance, but she hadn’t confirmed what the Knight had told her. Thus she had to take a passive approach. She walked into the Gazebo and sat next to Desmond while the maid stood to the side of the entrance and glared at Avery. Avery also glared back. This continued for a few moments before the Empress felt this was getting a little out of hand.

“Go fetch stuff to make some tea.”

The maid looked like she wanted to say something only to bite it back and bow before leaving. Maria then turned her attention to Avery.

“You seem to be a feisty child.”

“Only when prodded. I’m a pretty easy going gal.”

“We’ll see, but that’s going off topic. Care to tell me why you believe you’re not a guest here?”

“This is my home.”

“I believe this place is a long-lost ruin.”

“To you, but I remember it thriving.”

“Care to prove that?”

Avery let out a sigh. She felt a headache coming on with this person. If it was simply questioning her, that’d be fine. It’s something to be expected if some strange girl appeared out of nowhere. It was actually Empress Maria’s expression that kept annoying her. It was something cross between a smug look and a pleasant smile. Like a “Gotcha” expression. She didn’t know why, but it rubbed her the wrong way.

“Let’s just cut it, obviously you want something. Just freakin’ say it.”

“Place your hand on this.”

Empress Maria expression actually changed at her words. She too wanted to get to the point, but she had her way of doing things so she didn’t appreciate Avery being to blunt. She gestured one of the knights to come forward. After a few moments, the one knight that had been with Desmond before had come forward. He was carrying a black gem that was about twelve inches wide and two feet long. He kneeled down in front of Avery, explained how to use it then let her place her hand on it.

After a few moments, it glowed when Avery placed her hand on it before she pressed a few prompts on it then saying “okay.” The knight then got up and went to the Empress before kneeling and handing it over to her. She swiped her finger up to get to the beginning of the long. After reading the beginning prompts and getting to the status, it seemed she froze instantly. Desmond looked over to see why his mother was acting a little strange and also froze up when he saw Avery’s status

[This Status Displaying tool requires permission to show your Status.]

[Subject has given permission]

[Status not compatible with current Era’s status, do you wish to convert it? Doing so will only affect display only.]

[Subject has given permission, displaying Status now.]

[Unknown terms found. Reformatting.]

<———————————————————>

Name: Avery Bailey |” FemmeFoxtrot “

Age: [Error] [ Subject is immortal, set age 18.]

Race: High-Human

Mana gauge: 1,00,000

Level: 1,000

Ability Rank: SSS+

Owns: Sky Gardens, Coastal Palace, Church of Eternal Peace, Mountain Clouds Fortress.

Titles: [50+ titles, showing most recent.]

[Saint of Olde] – Your good deeds have spread far and wide, there are few who do not know of your kind-heart… | Error

[Hero] – Defeated the Demon King & it’s armies | Error, +200,000 Mana

[Avery’s Fallen Star] – Present on the eve of Avery’s death | Error

[Goddess Jen’Kuo’s Mercy] – Jen’Kuo has heard the prayers of the Demi-Gods and has given Avery another life. |Reincarnated & immortalized

[One who Defies the Gods] – Alistair, Yaano, and Leena have purged the world of all, but one Demi-God through crusades. |Immune “Server” wide plague

[Hearth Keeper] – Your statues live on in the wilderness and have become icons of safe travels. | Statue locations have become safe havens for travelers. Bandits, Pirates & demons honor this as well.

[Icon of Heresy] – Viewed as a Pagan Symbol, most believers of Alistair & Leena view you as a corrupted entity. | Enemy of Holy Empire & Bastion Sea People

New! – [Primordial Being] Awakening in Eos, thousands of years have passed, and the world you’ve known has disappeared. | Ascension possible.

<———————————————————>

After viewing Avery’s status, both of them stared at her like she was a freak at a circus… After about an hour, Avery and Empress Maria were walking side by side. Their laughs could be heard by everyone in the Flower gardens as they made their way towards the Garden’s Docks. Desmond was carried on the back of his personal knight looking like his soul had left him a long time ago.

“So my dear Avery, how about coming to visit our Empire? We can have little Desmond show you around the capital!”

“But you just said that he has schooling, didn’t you? School is important!”

“Nonsense! If you wanted the emperor to show you around, it’s possible too!”

Maria laughed softly as she said some outrageous things. Avery didn’t like that idea, she already was troubled by this Empress trying to coax her into joining her empire. It wasn’t problematic, just a little tiresome having her try so hard to do it. The conversation stalled for a while as Avery thought on a way out of dealing with the Empress shooting off all these suggestions and pitches. Then she had an idea.

“Well, right now I have some business on the ground. Since you’re offering so kindly to allow me access to your empire, why don’t I just temporarily join the academy that Desmond is at?”

“O? But only if you become one of my subjects!”

A sweet smile bloomed across Empress’s face as she said some very blatantly shameless words.

“Well if that’s the case, I’ll pass. I’ll just move the island elsewh-“

“NO! Erm…”

For a moment the Empress became flustered as she almost grabbed Avery’s hand in panic. She caught herself just before she did and cleared her throat before collecting herself.

“I mean that won’t be necessary. For you, I can make a decree allowing you in without citizenship.”

“Ah, that saves me the trouble of relocating the Island.”

Avery smiled sweetly at the Empress who had a cold sweat run down her cheek. She knew how valuable the Island was. She just couldn’t allow Avery to relocate it out of their borders. Being such a strong existence and one with such abundance of resources, who wouldn’t kiss up to her?

” Ah.. Where are we?”

“Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“Little Desmond, I have great news! Ms. Avery will be attending your academy !”

Desmond received another blow to his mental state, causing him to enter crisis mode again…