"Who are the people in the costumes? They look neat!" asked Amelia, as Sandy seemed to get over her surprise.

"Oh, them? Maisie's sister's husband's friend, Archie, the one in the club? His best friend, Basil, is into that stuff. You know, role-playing games and reenactment and such. They heard about how 'enchanting' and 'fairie tale' like it was here and thought they'd come along for a lark. They seem to be quite enjoying themselves over there, don't they?"

"Huh. Yeah, I can see why they'd be interested. I'm gonna go chat with them for a minute. Have one of the scones, they came out great! Oh, and that jug there is the beer. It's not quite as good as the stuff Tuuka makes, but still pretty good. I'll give you a tour of the house in a bit."

"Of course, dear! Run along, and I'll mind this cute pupper here! Who's a cutey patootie? Who's a love bug?" The last bit said to the dog, of course. Shock rolled over and showed her belly, her tongue lolling about as she wiggled on her back.

"I might hurl!" said Pancake, who elected to abandon his post and trailed after Amelia.

"Alright, everybody? Nice costumes! Glad to see other people with good fashion sense!" greeted Amelia, twirling her cloak behind her.

The group hushed as they all turned to look at her.

"Thank you! And that is a very nice cloak you have on, Miss Amelia!" said an older man who moved to the front of the crowd. He had a long white beard and wore a dark scarlet caftan which strained around his belly, aided slightly by a green sash he wore as a belt. "I'm Bill and that's ..." he pointed at and named the costumed people one by one, but they all had strange and fake-sounding fantasy names, and Amelia couldn't remember any of them.

"We're a gaming club, and we thought we'd drop in and have a look after all the hype we heard. Hope you don't mind?" Bill continued after he was done with introductions.

"Not at all! I'm just happy to have visitors. Help yourselves to the refreshments! And go walk in the woods, they're neat! I'll be here if you have any questions. Just maybe don't feed the sprite or the wisp -- they might explode if they eat much more."

The group dispersed and started wandering around in ones and twos, much as the ramblers had done. Bill, however, clearly had questions.

"Is that really a goblin over there? Is she ... evil?" he quietly asked.

"Who, Briar? Yeah, she's a goblin. Pointy teeth, pointy ears, three toes. Not sure if the no-shoes thing is diagnostic, though. I don't think she's evil unless you mess with her garden. Then all bets are off."

"Huh. Neat! Where did you find her?"

"Actually, Bert found her! I just said I wanted a garden, and POOF! There she was. More or less."

"Fascinating! I'd love to meet this Bert of yours!"

Tyni's warning about sharing the nature of the place suddenly leapt to the front of her brain, and she managed to stop herself from saying too much.

"Oh, he's around somewhere. Pops up when you least expect him!"

Bill nodded, entranced by Fern trying to help pry Whisper free from the table. The jam had dried to the consistency of glue, and the pair were having problems.

"I haven't even left your front yard, and already I can tell this place is fantastic! I know this is an imposition, and please feel free to say no, but would it be possible for us to run some games here? The ambiance would be incredible!"

"That would be wonderful! What do you play?"

"Well, lots of stuff, but mostly tabletop games. You know, like D&D? You've heard of that? Yeah? We've been playing a few games like that, sort of. Currently, Tricube Tales. Same kind of thing, just simpler. And some LARP, of course." Bill answered, gesturing at his attire.

Amelia nodded. These were her sort of people!

"I love Tricube Tales! Zadmar, right? I was going to convert Howitt's What I Did On My Summer Holidays to that, but never got around to it. Love that game, so cozy! I used to play with friends before I moved here."

The man was possibly more stunned at that response than he had been at the sight of the goblin and sprite.

"Wow! A fellow geek--in the wild, as it were! What a pleasure!" he finally managed to get out.

"Bill! Bill! You gotta see this! There's a talking tree! He says he's a guardian of the woods! Talks like Treebeard! C'mon, man!" called a young man from the edge of the yard, frantically waving to get the gamer's attention.

"That's Alder, he's my friend, too! You should go talk to him, I think he gets lonely. Not that he would admit it. Oh! I know! When you come to play, we could set up a table in his clearing, and he could watch, or join us! Somebody would have to roll for him, though. Trees don't have hands, after all."

Bill gaped again, then nodded. "Awesome! That sounds great! I need to go meet this guy. Alder, you said? Be back in a bit. Nice to meet you, Amelia!" he said as he rushed off.

Amelia watched the rest of the group hurry off after Bill, then remembered her promise to Sandy. The shopkeep was still playing with Shock, while Fern was drinking out of her partly empty mug of ale on the table. Whisper had disappeared, most likely back to the oven.

"You know, sweet cheeks, I can teach you actual magic, in case you need more thrill in your life. No saving throw required!" said Pancake, amused by her exchange with Bill.

"I know, but games aren't just about the fantasy! They're a way of connecting with people, and socializing!" protested Amelia.

"Yeah, yeah. True, but there are other ways of connecting with people and socializing, know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink?"

"You are entirely too young to be making innuendoes like that! You're starting to act like Briar when she's had a pint!" Amelia scolded the kid, then moved off to rescue the puppy.

"Young? I'll have you know I'm ... Briar with a pint, you say? Oooh, I wonder if she likes brandy? You can put that in pints ... Baldrick, I have a cunning plan!"

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"And this is what I've been calling the Aviary, but is really just a nesting place. See all the cubbies up there? The birds can come and go through holes in the eaves, and keep their nests in there. That one's Blue's, and right next to it is Beige's. They're around here somewhere."

Sandy looked where Amelia was pointing, then around the rest of the room.

"I'll probably make this a workshop or something, but haven't gotten around to it yet. When the weather gets really bad, though, I'll probably spend more time in here."

"It's a very nice place you have, dear! And a tower, no less! Not drafty at all, even. You said you just built this the other day?"

"Uh, Bert did. He's, um, shy. You probably won't see him. But he's really neat!"

"I'm sure, dear. Can we go see the kitchen again? I want another look at that massive oven of yours."

"Sure thing! I should probably be downstairs anyways, in case anybody needs anything."

The group headed back downstairs, Amelia leading the way, followed by Sandy, and trailed by Pancake, with Fern standing on his back and steadying herself by holding his ears. He had to go down the stairs backwards, carefully lowering himself, and Fern abandoned her post before she got goat sick. She was feeling stuffed but had managed not to overdo it as badly as Whisper had.

By the time the kid finally made it to the ground floor, Sandy had already said her goodbyes and departed, cookbook in hand. Amelia and Briar were outside, chatting with Bill and his gang.

"You know, if you guys want to do a live-action game, I can probably get a hedge maze or something set up. And when the boys get back and get the mushrooms cleared out of the cavern, you could even play in there! It's really neat!"

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The gamers looked intrigued at the idea, and several discussions started about what rules to use and logistics issues. That went on until the light started to fade, and the snack table was noticeably bare. The last of the walkers had long since passed back through the yard.

Bill and one of the ladies in the gamer group offered to help clean up, and with their help, the yard was cleared away in no time. All the visitors had been respectful of the place, so there was no litter or mess to clean up. Just the dishes to be put in the sink, and the tablecloths piled up in the shed. When they offered to help with the dishes, Amelia shoo'd them away, citing "a helpful dishwasher" that would take care of it.

Amelia was a bit embarrassed to find someone had put a "donations" tin out on the snacks table. Since Bert produced all the raw materials, and technically they were getting energy from the visitors to make more, it felt like cheating or double-dipping, somehow. Bill had pointed out that it made people feel good to give when they were getting such a marvelous experience, so she was somewhat mollified. Plus, a tin stuffed with cash was a tin stuffed with cash--not something to turn down lightly.

When everyone was finally gone, she collapsed on her bed, wrapping herself in her cloak. It had been a wonderful day, with lots of people visiting and enjoying the hollow. Many had stopped by on their way out to let her know they'd like to come back in the future, possibly bringing others, and Amelia had encouraged them. Having the woods full of people just enjoying themselves was everything she'd hoped for. In many ways.

[Error. Lockdown -- Root access only. Active security available for unit assignment. Borders disengaged from all other realms. Ingress permitted via approved entrances only. Entry permitted only to zero danger entities, whitelisted, or approved petition.]

"I'm not certain what that all that means, Bert, but I'm guessing Lark can take a break from the wards, am I right? But visitors can still come in if they're safe?"

[Correct. Contracted agents Lark and Alder no longer required for security maintenance. Zero danger entities approved for entry.]

"Awesome! You got that much juice from our visitors?"

[Correct. Mana level at ... "Way more than enough".]

"Yippee! In that case, I have some ideas we should talk about ..."

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Amelia watched as Briar and Pancake walked down the path ahead of her, giggling about something. She had a feeling she didn't want to know what they were talking about but was glad to see the goat fitting in. He had found a kindred spirit in the goblin, and they'd been almost as inseparable as Whisper and Fern had become.

"Shock! What do you have in your mouth? Show me! No! Out! Out! Spit her out! Whisper is not a chew toy. You don't know where she's been!" The wisp wafted away from the puppy, completely unharmed. Amelia was starting to suspect the glow ball was deliberately goading the dog into trying to eat her, for some unknown reason. The wisp was a hard one to figure out.

The crew were all out clearing paths. As Lark had said, the normal paths were fine, but the paths in Megrim were in a sad state. Amelia was still trying to wrap her head around how all the various realm pieces fit together. The bird had resorted to trying to draw a diagram, which helped a bit. It seemed that realms could overlap in more than one way. The spatial overlap made sense, more or less. The other ones sailed right over her head, especially when Pancake tried to explain and started using names like Banach and Hilbert. She thought she knew what he meant when he used the word 'imaginary', but she was completely wrong. When she asked him to explain the 'banana' and 'dilbert' spaces again, the goat had just chortled and given up to go tell jokes with Briar. Amelia's takeaway had been that sometimes a tree could be in one realm but not another, or in more than one realm at the same time, and sometimes they could be assumed to be spherical and frictionless, for some reason. Regardless, the paths needed maintenance.

She had a bit better time when Lark had started to teach her how to see the Megrim paths. The bird had been very surprised that Amelia could already see them, thanks to that potion she'd accidentally made and ingested way back when. All she had to do was focus just right, and the paths were suddenly there. Just like when she'd followed the shepherd.

The last few days had been spent in path maintenance, just like when she first came to the hollow. But this time she had plenty of company. Even Beige and Blue made an appearance, flying from tree to tree along with their cronies as she worked, watching her and chattering away. She was careful not to look at that pair too closely, since she much preferred to think of them as cute birds wearing adorable sashes, and not the hulking monstrosities they were behind that facade. Plus it was a little ludicrous seeing gorilla-sized horrors perched on the tiniest of branches above her head. She shuddered and repressed the thought.

They'd even had some spontaneous visitors, in the form of several of the ramblers that had returned for more exploration. It seemed the hollows were a big hit, and not only was the original group happy to come back for walks, word was starting to spread farther and farther. Many took the bus into Eldertown, or drove and parked at Sandy's shop. Sandy was enjoying having people pass through, even if they didn't buy anything from her, and was even considering expanding her car park to accommodate more guests.

There were others about as well. Amelia mostly only glimpsed them at a distance, as they were working on the more remote Megrim paths. She rarely was able to make out any details, but it seemed that at least some of the secretive inhabitants of the hollow weren't so eager to hide from her. One particularly nice old gentleman had stopped to chat with the clearing crew for a few minutes. He was shorter than Amelia, and stooped with age, but wiry and fit. His clothing was old-fashioned, and she couldn't help thinking that he desperately needed to wash his hat. It was reddish-brown and crusty, which was disgusting. But he was nice enough, sharing his flask with Briar and Pancake. Amelia didn't ask, but she assumed he was an arborist or landscaper since he used a billhook as a walking stick. His had more spiky bits on it than hers did, though. He even helped clear a particularly nasty thorn bush they had been wrestling with. He just trod on it until it collapsed, the thorns no match for his iron walking boots. Amelia gave him some truffles she had dug up for his troubles.

There were several others she got to chat with, but as Briar had said, many of the inhabitants stayed in the shadows or wore robes or other concealing clothing, so she was often not sure if they were men or women, young or old, human or not. Not that it mattered to Amelia. She was finding that she enjoyed spending time with the inhabitants. Some were happy to pass the time with Amelia, telling remarkable stories and sharing snippets of gossip or secrets which largely went over her head. She took to carrying extra candy, biscuits, and flasks of 'medicinal' spirits to share when invited to tea. One nice beldame even let Amelia do her nails, although she had to fetch a file from the shed to do it properly. The sparks that showered out as she worked were very pretty. That was a nice afternoon, although Amelia found the lady's jewelry a little offputting. The heads looked remarkably realistic, and she was pretty sure one of them winked at her, but it was likely just a trick of the light.

There were also quite a few more animals in the wood than she had originally thought. She knew there were plenty of birds, squirrels, and other small woodland creatures, but there were larger beasts as well. She saw a horse playing in one of the ponds, and several dog-wolf things, one of which she mistook for Domas at first. Surprisingly, scritches and ear rubs were universally loved, as were jammy dodgers.

Amelia was a bit lost in thought when she realized the path they were working ended in a meadow that she hadn't been to before. It wasn't all that large, with the center dominated by a trilithon on an earthen mound. The great stone doorway reached well over Amelia's height, and standing between them, she could just touch the two uprights with her arms fully outstretched. A ring of toadstools with white spotted red caps circled the base of the mound, making for a very pretty contrast to the wildflowers and grass of the rest of the meadow.

"This would be a great place for a picnic!" Announced Amelia, leaning against one of the uprights.

The rest of the group joined her on the mound. It wasn't all that high, maybe four or five feet at most, but it felt higher, for some reason.

"I wonder what these stones are for? Anybody know?" She asked.

Briar looked up from where she was examining one of the wildflowers. "Gate to some realm. For when they align just right, sort of thing. Bit more obvious than the passage at the dancing glade, at least. Bit showy, for my tastes." The goblin went back to looking at the plants.

"Huh. So if I walk through, what happens?"

"Nothing, if the realms aren't in alignment. Unless you know how to power a hop, like Lark can."

Amelia walked through the stone doorway first one way, then the other. Nothing happened.

"Hey! That's right! How are the boys gonna make it back without someone to help them cross? Will they have to wait until the next starlight dance? When's that gonna happen, anyways?"

"Nah, not a problem. They're coming from Whimsy, right, so they'll just use one of the crossings to Megrim, and then just come in through the front gate. The gate and fence is in all three realms, don't you know."

The goblins saw the confused look on Amelia's face and explained further. "When everything lines up, you can just walk from one realm to another. But some places are always like that. Take the hollow -- in the front door from the Mortal realm, back out through the same gate into Megrim, just like that. If you know how. Happens by accident too. Causes a right mess, but that's travel for you. Always losing your luggage, foreign food givin' you the runs, so on and so on."

"Oh good. I was worried they wouldn't be able to get back!"

"Don't worry, caretaker. Might be new to you, but we know the score."

"Thanks, Briar! You're the best!" Amelia impulsively gave the gardener a hug.

"Well, maybe so, maybe so, but we should get back to clearing. Lotta paths to clean up!"

"Right! Back to work!"

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[Notice: Visitors detected at entrance gate.]

"Really? This late? Hope they brought torches!" Amelia said, mostly to herself. She was curled up in the armchair with a cup of cocoa, watching the fire sprites dance. It had been a long day of maintenance again, and she was getting used to the regular notice of visitors entering or leaving the hollow. Although almost all of them came first thing in the morning or around noon, there were a few that came at odd hours. That's why she restocked the refreshment tins periodically. Before her evening bath, she also cleaned the outside WC and restocked the bog roll. That way, everything was fresh and ready, and she didn't have to roll out of bed at the crack of dawn.

Mostly people just passed through the yard and headed straight out onto the paths, only stopping back by for a cuppa after their walk. They would wave if they saw Amelia about, and chat, but everyone respected her privacy and left the cottage alone.

So she was really surprised when she heard the knock on the door.

Shock leapt up from the blanket she shared with Pancake, sending the kid sprawling across the floor, bleary-eyed.

Pealing silences erupted as the puppy 'barked', facing the door.

"It's okay, girl! Nothing to get excited about. I'll just see who it is."

Amelia passed through the boot room and opened the front door, to see a crowd standing in the front yard. With three beaming faces she recognized.

"Tyni! Tuuka! Picker!" She yelled as she flew out the door to embrace her friends.