Alice:

Alice screamed and jerked upright from her lying position.

She materialised her sword and looked around frantically, but she couldn't see any attacking slaves. In fact, there wasn't anyone around, apart from a hillside with orderly rows of fruit trees.

Oranges? Orange trees? This is an orchard? And I'm not under attack?

She remembered the hellish feeling of having her abilities revved up by the Ashrend effects.

Oh my God, I hope never to experience that again.

She looked around again, more leisurely and discovered she wasn't alone.

There's Bronsen sitting up... Wait, that's nothing like Bronsen. It's Drayden!

Drayden was having his own little moment, but he soon recovered.

They looked at each other in silence for a while.

So, Bronsen is all alone with Cassy. He had bloody well better behave himself!

And I'm all alone with Drayden.

She remembered her last thought before dying.

Ah, well, after all, Drayden is hot. Not that anything is going to happen! But I do need a hug!

Fortunately, Drayden also needed a hug. This was followed by Alice filling Drayden in on what had happened after he and Cassy had died.

"I'm telling you, it was completely horrible! I still feel horrible!" said Alice, "In fact, why don't I turn my Emotional Control to full..."

Ding! Turning on Emotional Control full-time and full power to cope with stress is not a good idea. You will end up like Eleanor, forever going through life without feeling much and never resolving your trauma. Wherever practical, turn Control down as far as possible.

"Oh," said Alice.

She looked at Drayden, who appeared to have received the same message.

"Right. Doctor System has spoken, and we had better follow his advice."

Alice reluctantly turned back the Emotional Control, to the point where it was still painful, but let her deal with things.

"OK, getting back to business. Of course, we have no idea what happened after I died."

Alice looked at the calendar in her status. "It's been half a year. If we want to find out, we must return to Manifestoria."

Drayden looked around.

"This is an orchard, which implies people must maintain it. But where on the Ringworld is it?"

He looked up at the sky, at the broad swath of the Ringworld sweeping upward from both sides and narrowing as the two arms climbed high into the sky and wrapped around behind the sun. He pointed clockwise, just above horizontal.

"Oh. We are definitely in the slaver territory. That area has to be the monster territory you and Bronsen started in, and you can just see what must be Manifestoria. So we must be somewhere near the Jaserra sea."

"Bloody hell, that means that there are probably high-ranking slaves nearby, ready and willing to order all the grey-collared slaves to attack us," said Alice.

"If we don't want to be enslaved..." she continued.

Alice visibly shuddered at that.

"We had better concentrate on sneaking around and working out our situation," said Drayden.

"So, which direction?"

Drayden:

Alice is still twitching from stress. It's going to take some time for her to recover.

Actually, it will also take some time for me to recover.

And, of course, there's the elephant in the room: our relationship with each other.

She really is a hot item.

He realised that Alice was watching him, waiting for a response.

"Uhh, sorry. Why don't we go up the hill, get to the highest location, and survey the countryside?"

All the while, Alice had been looking around with jerky motions and jumping at each little sound that the wind in the branches of the orange trees made.

"Alice, if we hold hands?"

Alice clamped her hand onto his arm and kept behind him, couching up as if to avoid anyone's line of sight.

Her last moments must have been far worse than mine.

He remembered killing Cassy; he remembered all of the blood...

"Drayden, you're shuddering. Neither of us is OK, even with Emotional Control turned partially on."

"We'll be OK. Let's do something constructive and keep creeping up this hill."

The orange trees marched up the hill slope in neat lines.

Drayden noted the complete lack of any reticulation piping or any machinery. But then, the Manifestorians did not have much in the way of industrialisation. There were also no signs of any fencing.

The ground was tilled and weeds-free in a rough circle around each tree trunk.

It's probably all done with hand-held tools.

The trees looked healthy, with numerous big fat juicy oranges - and plenty of empty stalks indicating where the fruit had been picked.

"Hey, Alice, why don't we stop here and snack on some fruit?"

Ding! Remember the discussion about the true nature of reality here? They are not oranges or trees; the fruit is not even remotely edible without extensive processing. Sorry, the System can only stretch the translation between the Felixerra and Earth natures so far before it breaks. But spudnips are still OK.

Both Alice and Drayden jumped in surprise.

"Ah, on second thoughts, maybe if we keep going?" said Drayden.

They crept up to the top of the hill and took a glance. There was a water tank, a collection of buckets, and a small lean-to containing shovels and garden hoes. The orange trees, or whatever they were, continued in neat lines over the crest of the hill and down the other side. Down in the small valley, the lines of trees were interrupted by a creek, full of sparkling water, flowing into the sea that was now visible to their right. Also down in the valley was a flat area containing some buildings and a few dozen people wandering around doing things.

They hid behind the tank and cautiously studied the scene.

"I can only see grey-collar slaves," said Drayden.

"Ooh, look, some of them are pushing a cart full of those so-called oranges into one of the buildings," said Cassy.

"And in the orchards on the other side of the valley are dozens of more slaves amongst the trees. At a guess, I would say they were picking more of the fruit."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Since it seems that most Felixians, and certainly most slaves, do not have high physical stats, it should be safe enough to try sneaking down and peeking into the building. Shouldn't it?" said Drayden.

"I guess so. However, we will have to run like hell if we are spotted."

Drayden looked over towards the sea. He looked further, seeing the blue of the ocean extend from both sides of his line of view up the arm of the Ringworld.

"See that? I'd say we must be on an island. From what I can remember from the maps we saw in Eleanor's office, there are a lot of small islands, not to mention reefs and shallows, throughout the Jaserra sea."

"So there is the possibility that there aren't many people here. And an even smaller number of ranking slaves," said Alice.

"Not to mention the fact that Felixians hate sailing. So, with luck, there won't be any visitors for some time."

Are we capable of doing this?

"So, that leads to an obvious course of action..." said Drayden.

There was a gap in the conversation as they couched behind the tank, watching the grey-collared slaves scurrying about below.

"Yeah. We kill the ranking slaves. Then, wait for the order lock period to expire. Then think about how to get to Manifestoria or find the other two Misfits." said Alice.

She materialised her sword and was nervously swishing it around. Fortunately, she pointed it away from Drayden, much to his relief. Her ears continually twitched from side to side as if listening to any possible threats. And her tail was pointing low and curving to a horizontal level just above the ground. The end was flicking around erratically.

Drayden took notice of this and gently put his hand on her shoulder. And his tail across her back.

She's trembling. And I'm not much better.

"Let's sit here and spy on them for the afternoon. They seem to be concentrating on the other side of the valley and hopefully won't be coming to this side for the rest of the day."

They sat there for half an hour, relaxing in the sunlight, the green growing fruit trees all around, plus the buzzing of some bees.

Drayden idly wondered what the bees were in reality but dismissed the question. It wasn't important.

"If the blue-collared slaves, assuming it is them running the show, see us, they won't hesitate to either collar us or kill us," said Alice.

"And they will mobilise the entire population of this island to capture us," said Drayden.

"We would have to defend ourselves by killing grey-collared slaves," said Alice.

"And the greys will never stop attacking," said Drayden.

Sigh. "OK, OK, we have to kill the blue-collars. And red and green ones also, if there are any." said Drayden, "We don't have any choice, do we?"

"We couldn't have done that when we first arrived in this world," said Alice.

"But now, after the horrors of that seaside invasion, we can." said Drayden, "It's still going to freak me out, but."

"Yeah, I know, me too." said Alice, "But we will just have to do it."

"We are both going to be sleeping with nightmares for some time after this," said Drayden.

With that, they both took a deep breath.

They watched. And watched. And got hungry, but with no food nearby, they ignored their hunger pangs.

Finally, there was a generalised movement below. All of the visible far-flung slaves began to drift back towards the buildings.

Drayden consulted the clock in his status page. "Yep, must be the time for the evening meal."

"Hey, we came here mid-morning, and they didn't have a lunch break!" said Alice.

"Two meals a day only? I think that is the least of our worries!" said Drayden.

"I think we should wait until dusk, then creep down and find out where the ranking slaves are, then attack them. See, there is a path leading down the hill just over there, and it is behind the buildings, and there don't appear to be any windows looking this way. We can take advantage of the cover of those carts and..."

At this point, Drayden stopped. He detected a small disturbance in his local area.

Alice was glaring at him.

Drayden instantly remembered certain things that had happened with him and Cassy. Not to mention the story of Bronsen charging off and getting entangled with a lesser hippo or something.

"Ah, right, I'm supposed to consult with the others on the team before acting, aren't I?"

Alice smiled sweetly. "That's right. The last man who didn't do that led to me getting my arms bitten off!"

Gulp. "Ah, yes, right, so I'm definitely consulting with you. Right now!" said Drayden.

They consulted. Ten minutes later, they agreed to precisely the plan that Drayden had proposed.

Let's not point that out. No need to, no, definitely no need to.

Alice:

Get a grip of yourself, Alice!

Drayden is doing his best.

Geez, the after-effects of those Ashrend effects are still driving me crazy.

And, also, face it, I'm getting jealous about Bronsen being with Cassy.

But I'm still highly attracted to Drayden.

Ignore it all!

Concentrate on surviving!

And hold onto Drayden's hand as much as possible.

I still wish I could turn the Emotional Control to the max.

There was a parking area of sorts, with a dozen carts randomly located. Each cart had two large wheels, one on either side and a handle sticking out from its front. They didn't provide much in the way of cover since anybody could see under the cart. However, by good fortune, a cart was lying on its side. It had a broken wheel, and it was in the process of being repaired. The carts were out from the buildings, and no one was nearby. So, they crept up to it using the broken cart as cover, and relying on the dimming light, they peeked around the sides.

"Look, that big building must be where the oranges are processed. It's got chimneys with smoke coming out and lots of barrels stacked up along its outside walls," said Drayden.

"And, a big giveaway, all the workers in it are coming out and congregating at what must be the community food hall," said Alice.

They watched as grey-collared slaves drifted in from the surrounding orchard areas and the factory building. They didn't appear to be in any hurry, but there was very little social interaction.

"If this were a bunch of school children back on Earth, they would be clumping together in their little social cliques, chatting away like mad," said Drayden.

"Don't forget all the loners trying to stay unnoticed!" said Alice.

"Ahh, so long ago. And so far, far away," said Drayden.

They counted the slaves going past.

"I'll say about seventy?" said Alice.

"More like sixty-five? Plus, there must also be some more inside doing the food preparation."

"OK, how about we make the numbers about eighty as a starting guess?"

"Aah! Look, two blue-collar slaves! They are coming out of the remaining big building," said Alice.

"Yep. Presumably, that building contains the dormitories and, maybe, workplaces also?"

"Then what is that little house-like building next to it for?"

"Maybe the blues live there?" said Drayden.

"It has occurred to me, exactly where and when do we kill those blues?" said Alice.

"Probably not a good idea to do it in front of everyone. After all, we have no idea what standing orders they might have. And there might be more ranking slaves lurking around."

"Fine then. While everyone is busy eating, we retreat, circle around and case out that little house. If it is where the blues live, then we can ambush them when they return."

"Good idea!" said Drayden.

Now I'm the one giving the orders!

The house's sole door pointed towards the other buildings. But it had windows on all sides. When they arrived at the house, they found that all of the windows on the back side were locked from the inside.

Crack.

The window's catch broke as Alice casually exerted a bit of pressure. She opened it wide, gripped the window sill, and flipped her body up and over and into the room. Drayden followed.

It was half filled with assorted boxes and junk.

Alice picked up an iron rod lying on the ground.

“Not very neat, are they?”

She used it to point to one side of the room, indicating a pile of boxes.

"And, are those boxes sitting on a bed?"

"Yeah, it is. It still has a blanket, half full of moth holes. And look!"

Drayden pointed to the wall, where there were pieces of paper tacked on. They had pictures drawn in crayons, very simple pictures. A horse and cart, a man and a woman holding a child, what might have been a cat...

"This used to be a child's room!" said Drayden.

"I guess the slavers came through and started using it as a store room without even bothering to clear it out," said Alice.

"Looks like the slaver society for the grey-collars is extremely basic and simple; after all, they are just obeying orders from above and have absolutely no opportunity for any spare time activities."

"And certainly no capacity to express their personalities."

After looking around a bit more, they approached the internal door.

"Ah, just a thought, perhaps we should have checked to see if anyone else was in the building?" said Drayden.

"Oops."

They cautiously opened the door. This next room was the front room of the small, square-shaped building. It had the front door, which was currently closed, and two other internal doors, both open and showing rooms empty of people.

The room they were now in was relatively neat and tidy, with two desks and a chair each. Small stacks of papers and some ledgers were on the desks, while a bookshelf had more piles of papers, ledgers, and books.

"Right, this is the office where they run the business. Say, System-san, what exactly do they make out of all of those oranges?" said Alice.

Ding! What you call Marmalade, the stuff on every breakfast table in Manifestoria. It provides a chemical compound vital to a Felixian's biochemistry, which you might as well call Vitamin C. You didn't need it while surviving alone, but only because you ate so much meat. The typical Felixian doesn’t have much meat, and slaves certainly don’t, so an additional source is needed.

"It sure is nice to get all of this extra information from System-san," said Drayden.

Alice moved over and checked one of the rooms.

"It's a bedroom, and by the looks, it has been cleaned out of all the original contents."

Drayden took a peek over Alice's shoulder.

"It's still filled with a lot of boxes and junk."

Alice looked into the wardrobe, only to find it had no clothes, only more boxes and bits and pieces.

Drayden looked into the final room: "It’s the same, except there is also a chest. It looks much more well constructed than all the other boxes around here."

So Alice nipped past him and lifted the lid.

"Eek! It’s full of slave collars!"

"Bloody hell!"

"What do we do with them?"

"Destroy them?" said Drayden.

"But here in the middle of the slaver country, it doesn't make much difference to the number of collars, does it?" said Alice, "And, also, we do not need the extra points ourselves; all of our useful stats are already maxed out."

"Wait! If we get these back to Manifestoria and carefully supervise them, we can increase the stats of everyone we know!" said Drayden.

"Hey, that's a good idea. I wonder if that is one of the reasons the slaves are always so careful to account for each discarded collar?"

At this point, their enhanced hearing picked up the sounds of two sets of footsteps approaching. And two men talking.

Alice and Drayden, without any discussion, both made a dive for the spare room they originally came in. They drew the door almost closed, but not quite. Then, they calmed themselves and waited for whatever might happen.