Sometime within Milo's sleep, he once again found himself in the clearing with Nadarska's tree. He walked quickly over to the anthropomorphic avatar standing by the tree, for the first time feeling more eagerness than bewilderment or dread.
"I can sense that Baycorf has been extracted" Nadarska finally said as Milo got within a few feet of where he was standing. "Was the book retrieved?"
"Yes, it was" Milo said.
"Excellent" Nadarska says drawing the word out for emphasis. "I want to do something to you to as a token of my thanks. Can you think of anything?"
"I do have some question to ask of you."
"Always the insatiable curiosity. What is it you want to know?"
"Could you locate the ghost of Aura Madeen for me?" Milo asked hopefully.
" I don't need to find her because I know where she is. If you don't mind my asking, why are you interested in meeting with her?"
"Baycorf implored on me to go and see her."
"If that is the case, then I would go, but it is certainly not the safest trip that you can make."
"Where is she?" Milo asked once again feeling a sense of dread.
"Marzala. In the northwestern portion of the planet there is a valley in the middle of some high mountains where the volcanic particulates and ash to not raise high enough to get to. Her apparition is usually seen there. There is a pretty mysterious temple there created by the grays that I'm not quite sure of its purpose."
"Do you have the power to summon the ghost of any once-living person?"
"No, I have no control over who survives death and to what degree they do."
"How exactly does one become a ghost after death?" Milo asked feeling more bold with Nadarska's gratitude to ask questions that served no purpose other than to satiate his general curiosity.
"I do not understand the metaphysics to large degree be honest with you. Often it's when someone dies with some sort of strong lingering emotion or a sense of non-closure in their life. That is one aspect of human folklore which is true."
"I can't say that I've seen too many spirits around to converse and interact with" Milo said, unwittingly channeling Kayla.
"Yes of course, but most spirits have left behind their physical brains which are almost always required for any lucid interaction within the physical world. But Aura, she is different. She can not only converse with living beings, but retains much of her memories and faculties and not fragmented memories and emotions. I strongly suspect this is concomitant with her unusually strong spirit – or metaphysical mind - she has. Sort of like yours."
"Spirit?" Milo asked, figuring that showing a tinge of skepticism and doubt might be a good way to bait him into giving some explanations.
"Yes. All intelligent life has dual physical brains and metaphysical minds or spirits. It is why the dream of many elves and humans to create machines smarter than any living thing to attain all the secrets of the universe has never been realized. Machines have strictly a physical component." Milo recalled reading the writings of Frik Heredik, who argued a true replication of cognition in software would require an infinite software code.
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"Nadarska" Milo said turning the course of the conversation. "What can you tell me about the goddess? "Do you really think she's going to kill all humans?"
"Probably not, but I wouldn't put it past her if she feels there is no other option. She will spare no one suffering and anguish to achieve whatever her vision for the future of life is."
"And yet there are humans that want to do her bidding?" quipped Milo.
"Of course. The capacity for self-loathing is a uniquely human trait. They are easily tricked and manipulated into following her. They are trusting the apparently magical being interacting with them, as are you."
"Are you asking me to be more suspicious and distrustful of you?" Milo asked surprised at hearing those words.
"No. Use your great physical brain and metaphysical mind that I endowed you with to guide you." At that moment, Milo saw the familiar blurring of his surroundings and he went back to sleep, even though he had a lot more questions to ask. Sometime later, Milo awoke. He took his tablet and opened the journal of the Leshraka king that Baycorf had given him. Most of the entries appeared to be not overly interesting, detailing various banal, every-day activities of a king. He was not far from closing the diary and finding something else to read when he finally found an entry that caught his eye.
Precession 1475, Day 467
Today we were informed that Leshraka farms in the southwestern portion of the tribal plains were completely destroyed by the Elven Queen's soldiers. This is well outside of disputed territory where our farming rights have not yet been contentious. The only real recourse at this point is to gather every surviving member of our people and flee across the Great Sea to the southlands – a perilous journey on which at least some probably won't survive. I have informed my subjects of this choice and have made it clear that the purpose of this journey is not to start a new life, but to buy time to try and find some way with which to stave off our destruction at the behest of Gaia.
At this point I must take the prophets of Nadarska at their word that the goddess intends to destroy our people and leave no trace, and thus the time to attempt to make peace with the elf kingdom is over. I have thought long and hard to think of a way to regain the upper hand against Gaia's servants, and have surmised the only way to do that is to take hostage the flora and fauna of the lands with the demand of leaving us alone, but I do not know of how to do that without putting ourselves in great peril.
As he was pondering this, the door opened and Kayla returned from her morning jog on the beach.
"Kayla, I know where Aura Madeen is. I think we should go and visit her."
"Where?" Kayla asked seeming surprisingly interested. Milo hesitated for a moment, knowing giving the answer wasn't going to go over well.
"There's apparently some kind of gray structure on Marzala where the ghost can be seen." Kayla heaved a big sigh.
"I didn't think you'd be very receptive to going there" Milo said.
"I got message from Roman" Kayla replied. "It said that unless we've got any useful leads he wants us to leave tomorrow and at the end of the day and he will have someone else check us out. The armada is sending a bunch of ships to the Mulgrath system to fight the reptilian fleet there. I've been willing to follow a lot of the strange directions this mission has taken, but I'm not willing to go to a place as dangerous as Marzala to go and visit a so-called ghost. That luxury carrier we have just won't be able to handle the atmosphere"
"We could borrow a more suitable craft from Dover. He'll help us out after what we did for him."
"I'm sorry, Milo, but I just don't think we're going to get any useful and worthwhile information and since there's no reason to think otherwise we would technically be disobeying orders." Kayla protested. Milo was about to decide to just give it a rest before a thought occurred to him.
"I think I may have a way to get the reptilian fleet to back off. The fleet and the outworld forces could both be putting themselves in a lot of danger. Victor's unit is almost surely going to get deployed there, don't you think?" Kayla looked at him with a really worried, grim look on her face.
"Kayla, I'm serious here, I'm not trying to manipulate your emotions-"
"If you've got any way help stop the entire sector from getting engulfed in war then I'm in. Ask Brian if they have any spacecraft that can safely reach the surface of Marzala" Kayla interrupted. She walked into the bathroom to go take her shower. Milo picked up his phone to dial Brian.