“Stop making those ridiculous noises.” A voice pulled at her consciousness.

Amelia muttered and slapped out several times, trying to halt the noise that was probably coming from some terminal alarm she had set. She kept swatting even as the noise persisted. It was school break and she didn’t need to get up early for class. She was even on vacation out of the country, so alarms were just something to be swatted at until they stopped. This one, however, persisted and slowly pulled her from her restful slumber.

Amelia stretched and yawned, her eyes finally adjusting to the world. A curious golden orb was eyeing her from less than a meter away, staring without blinking. Keristrazly was stretched out comfortably against the stone ground and Amelia was stretched out comfortably at his side. Ah, she had fallen asleep in the game again. It was a simple matter of finding the alarm she had set herself on her heads up display and disabling it. Swatting around for it in the air had proved useless, which was probably just as well.

No small wonder that the dragon she had been sleeping against looked annoyed.

Well, he had looked annoyed but he was a rather entitled dragon so she didn’t think much of it. Amelia had discovered that the dragon slept a lot when she began venturing up the mountain to spend time with him. Initially, she felt sorry for him because he was alone. His presence over Blutonsi had been accepted by the Transients and Residents when it had been explained to the people that there was a small inlet behind the mountain which came to a pool which he heated so it wasn’t frozen over. Fish would come into the large pool and then be trapped when the tide went out. He would boil them and eat them.

Keristrazly really was the epitome of a friendly dragon. At the suggestion that he might favor human flesh he had been quite indignant and had gone to great lengths to impart that not only was such a meal unsatisfying, it was too tricky. Armor had to be peeled, weapons carefully discarded, and still there was the indigestion! Also, where he could scent parasites and diseases from fish and other wildlife, people were too fragrant and he never knew if they were safe to eat. Not only that but there was just the tiniest of lip-curling when the subject was brought up. There must be something truly unsavory about people flesh.

Amelia pushed away her hair. She had generated longer hair for her avatar as her own hair grew out in the real world. Now it was long past her shoulders. “Sorry. I think I lost track of time again.”

“Don’t you have a kingdom to run?” The dragon rumbled. His great eye closed and stopped looking at her as the noise of her alarm receded into memory.

“I do. Hey Keristrazly.” Amelia smiled, feeling a bit impish as she woke up. “What do you think the world would be like with the Halves?”

She was of course referring to the long extinct Halves that had died out when the evil world god Void had appeared. It was ancient history in the game, Awakened Aspiration Online, but Amelia knew something that the dragon didn’t. She was really enjoying teasing him lately. The Halves were kind of a mystery as far as their look. Amelia was guessing they were thinner than dwarves but around the same height. Perhaps even smaller, like a pixie race.

“They were too smart.” The dragon finally decided after a long pause. He had started to look indignant but the same benevelovent look he generally had creeped across his features, as if he decided that Amelia hadn’t been picking a fight. “They would have never let an upstart like you be queen of the north!”

“Don’t be like that!” Amelia protested. She yawned and stretched again. “I already said I was sorry that I woke you up a century early.”

“It wasn’t that much longer,” he harrumphed. “Don’t you have a small village to terrorize? I haven’t seen many children since you started coming up here. Perhaps you are scaring them away?” The dragon joked lightly.

It wasn’t all that untrue though. At first the Refugees had been rather spooked by the fact that an Imperial Class dragon lived above their home once they returned. They warned people away and even started to generate quests to rid the area of Keristrazly. Amelia had been forced to intercede. She had taken several influential Residents up, albeit largely unwillingly, and had introduced the dragon as the savior of the north. She had added they could all give thanks to him because he had been watching over them for generations.

Then it was all she could do to keep the children that ran up the mountain each morning bereft of parental supervision from truly harassing the dragon. They clamored over and climbed the dragon for hours. Amelia wasn’t sure, but secretly she thought that Keristrazly was pleased. It wasn’t until she herself began climbing the mountain one morning and talking with the dragon that the Resident interest waned.

The children had been initially frightened of the dragon, and so had the people. Their Empress, however, was a different sort of terror to them. They must bow to her, and grovel, and beg for her mercy as she passed. Soon there were no people that journeyed up the mountain.

Amelia felt bad about that. Still, she needed to hear the story of the Half Hero Queen Victoria so she persisted in her venture up the mountain as she befriended the great red dragon. Dragging the story out of him had been a different kind of experience altogether, as Keristrazly generally didn’t wish to speak of the Halves and largely ignored her for a time.

Empress Amelia of the Far North Continent. Hers was an existence that terrified her kingdom. They all acknowledged her as sovereign but she never felt like they wanted her. Instead, they viewed her like a being that was capable of single-handedly destroying their enemy, Mourning, a Visage Lord who had wiped out nearly all their kin. Mourning, who fell with one Reflect spell(and not a small amount of dragon help). Each day she signed papers letting families immigrate to the Silf, Human, and Dwarven territories she had ceded after what many were calling the Calamity War. Each day she signed those papers, and each day she felt a little bit slighted with their ingratitude. At some point, she had announced that as long as there was space anyone could immigrate, and when housing filled up, new housing was to be constructed. It was a neat and lazy way to dodge all that ridiculous paper signing.

“I wonder what would happen if they all came back,” Amelia said loudly, once again referring to the Halves.

“The first thing they would do is remove the tyrant that currently occupies this land,” Keristrazly said without malice. He knew what she had fought for when they were atop the mountain together. His words were nothing but jest, even if there was a sliver of truth in that he regarded her as a gentle tyrant.

“Wouldn’t that be amazing.” Amelia grumped, not about to be put off by his baiting. “I would give it all up in a moment you know!”

“I have never heard of a queen that so yearned to be a commoner.” Came his disbelieving reply.

“Not even Victoria?” Amelia said. She grinned at him, knowing that she was really starting to go into an area where she might provoke him.

“Victoria loved her people. She never wanted to rule them. When she saw that they demanded her service she gave herself to them. This conversation is turning from friendly banter toward rudeness, Amelia!” He growled low in his throat, causing Amelia to laugh.

He really was just a large kitten. A kitten might have been the wrong description, she thought. This was a dragon who had, and still did, protect the site of his friend’s death centuries after the event. That kind of loyalty was not to be made light of even if it was largely digital fiction. She could but hope for such loyalty when she died, even if it was in the format of a loyal virtual intelligence in a VRMMO like Awakened Aspirations Online.

“I apologize! You are of course correct.” Amelia was dying to tell him but had talked many a night with her companions who had all decided that telling the dragon might upset history. Even though the quest said they could change history it didn’t mean that certain events wouldn’t come to pass.

Still, she couldn’t resist a little foreshadowing now and again. “Do you think Victoria would be an old woman with you now if she hadn’t died?”

“The Halves were immortal. They never aged and were wise beyond years. It is what drew Void to them first, I believe.” The dragon sounded uncertain on that point but continued. “IF Victoria had lived she would have long ago taken me from this wretched mountain and given me my due. Perhaps a small fishing community that would feed me daily. Do you have such resolve?” His great eye once again opened as he considered her lazing beside him.

“To give you a small population devoted to climbing your fat stomach and feeding you? No! I much like the warrior you are!” Amelia said chidingly. She was trying to imagine a fat dragon who didn’t have to move for food and wasn’t liking the image.

After a moment of thought, she felt inclined to also add, “wretched mountain? I think perhaps I shall tell the town below that I won’t visit you any longer! I think the children will be back within a week, don’t you? You certainly failed to disguise your pleasure as they climbed you!”

“Agh. Be gone with your infernal prattling. Some of us yet sleep.” In a great show of contempt, Keristrazly turned his great shoulders and head away from her toward the mountain, showing he was ignoring her.

Amelia laughed again as she started to make her way down the mountain. It was a different journey than the one she remembered from several months ago. Over the sides of the winding path, she could view the landscape below. Where before nothing had existed now there was green. The Silf had wasted no time after hearing her offer. They had moved in almost immediately the following week of the battle and used their craft and their nature affinity to seed trees.

Magnificent pine trees littered the expanse, and Queen Catherine had named an heir from the lesser family of Silf to oversee the fledgling lands.

Princess Skyline had quickly consolidated her power and led the reconstruction of a great Silf forest. Temples to the wolf goddess were erected and the trees grew at an unnatural pace. She had heard a rumor that the Silf in this area were beginning to be referred to as Winter Silf, and that they were already paler than their forest cousins.

Blutonsi was different too.

Craftsmen and Tradesmen had flocked to the north after the battle’s conclusion. True to their words, the city-leaders threw their significant war chests at the reconstruction effort in the north. What had once been a burned and desecrated city had been revived. The humans now inhabiting the area had built great stone buildings. There was a library, a cathedral, a starter center, Transient and Resident housing, and even at Amelia’s insistence, a temple dedicated to the goddess Vienne.

Gabriel had been very pleased with the addition but still refused to talk about his trials and ordeals when he ascended to the rank of Templar of the Order. Amelia had tried to ply him for information but all he would say was there were snake and worm pits involved and he really didn’t want to talk about it.

When she reached the town she sighed in anticipation. If she overslept it could only mean one thing. Dinner was not far off in her future. Dinner these days was always cause for rejoicing and haste. Amelia logged off on the outskirts of the town.

------------------------------------

Amelia pulled the visor off her head and sat up. Her body felt cramped and tight. Even though Dive Gear was a substitute for sleep her body still felt the effects of paralysis over long periods of time. There was quiet noise from the room next to hers, and with a bit of stiffness, she got out of her bed and went to the door.

She missed her apartment, but she did love Hunter’s ranch.

“Oh. Amelia woke up.” Raven said, rather obviously, as Amelia entered the room.

She and Elisha were sitting at a table and making character sheets on paper with a pen. Raven and Elisha had both discovered that in addition to being sudden best friends they shared several interests. Elisha really liked to table-top game and Raven had immediately fed into her enthusiasm. Now all they seemed to do in the real world was play campaigns in worlds they imagined.

Initially, Amelia had thought it strange that Elisha had been in the game at all of the weird times they were online and battling. Now she knew that Elisha wasn’t homeschooled or schooled at all. The 14-year-old was some sort of genius that had already graduated high school and was taking online courses at her own pace. One of the reasons she and Hunter had even started playing was because Elisha didn’t have any friends her age.

While Raven was a bit older, much older chronologically, in Amelia's opinion it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that she would attach herself to Elisha. The one-armed girl immediately grew infatuated with everything that Elisha introduced her to, and went after it with all the passion of anyone who was in love with entertainment and hobbies. Amelia had asked her at one point if it was weird, doing things with someone so obviously younger. Raven had stared at her like she was stupid, just another day apparently, and had replied that Elisha was much older in the soul than most.

After the final battle with the Visage, Amelia, Raven, Forsythe, and Aidan had all decided to take an extended trip to Australia to meet Hunter and Elisha. Forsythe for obvious reasons, and the rest of them because the thought of suffering through meals without their master chef was unbearable. Amelia wasn’t sure what having Forsythe gone would have done to Aidan and Raven, but she knew that she herself would have been sad. She really enjoyed their kitchen chats.

“Dinner soon!” Hunter, or Tali, as was her real name, entered the room proclaiming that food was imminent.

She had undergone a drastic change since their arrival too. When they had first arrived she had been a little bit wary about letting strangers into her house. Even though they had become fast friends and the best of companions, there was something about seeing someone in the real world that made you think it might not be a good idea. When they started paying her unbidden for room and board she had lightened up.

What really did it, Amelia thought, was Forsythe.

“Set your plates.” Forsythe followed Hunter from the kitchen wearing a new apron. This one simply said ‘bow to your chef god’.

Ever since he had arrived Hunter seemed to be floating about three inches from the ground. They went out into the dark together holding hands almost every night, and when they returned Hunter always seemed miles away, only tethered to the ground at all because he was keeping her there.

Aidan appeared from the doorway, and the first thing he did was waggle his fingers at Amelia. He was grinning. Probably had something to tell her about something he saw when he was out on one of his walks. She remembered thinking that he was the type of person that she was the worst at dealing with. Now she longed for his attention and his talks. She supposed that Hunter wasn’t the only one floating around.

“Smells good.” Aidan decided, speaking up, completely oblivious to the warm fuzzy thoughts Amelia was sending his way.

“I’m sorry meat-eaters. Tonight we’re doing grilled mushrooms with noodles in a pesto sauce.” Forsythe said. He disappeared and moments later reappeared with large plates. “You can’t have steak every night, but you can have something just as good.”

Amelia didn’t know why he was trying to sell them. At this point, he could have offered her a paper box and she would have tried it, convinced that it would be delicious and filling. “I don’t care. I want two.” She told him.

“Start with one.” Forsythe cautioned.

“I’ll take three then.” Raven declared, using her one good arm to hold a fork over her empty dish.

“One,” Forsythe repeated. He doled her out a sizeable portion of noodles and pesto anyway before adding a grilled mushroom.

“Tomorrow,” Amelia said quietly. The conversation ceased. All eyes turned toward her expectantly. “Let’s try for tomorrow. We should try to finish this quest before the fall semester. Is that too soon?”

“No. Enthusiastic is how I would rate Shadow Fall. They really want to go on an adventure. They think the dungeons around Blutonsi are challenging but they are aching for that world quest feel again.” Hunter admitted. Shadow Fall was the primary guild based out of the Far North Continent now, or Elysium as Amelia had renamed it. She had always felt the continents deserved real names and not descriptions of where they were located.

“Are we really taking Gilduirn?” Raven asked, her eyes flashing with annoyance. “Gabriel I get, Vienne might show up. Why do we have to take anyone not in Shadow Fall?”

Gilduirn. The warrior and guild leader from Ominous had taken a lot of flack from the gamers. Forums and threads had filled up after they saw the final battle and most of them had attacked the player personally. If he hadn’t started the event early or if he hadn’t been killed on the mountaintop or if he had been part of the alliance… The list went on and on until Amelia had finally gotten Elias Thompkins, CEO of MKC Online, to schedule Amelia for an interview talking about the aftermath.

In that interview Amelia had publicly defended Gilduirn, telling everyone that the game would have been destroyed without him. It wasn’t a lie, Amelia firmly believed that without Ominous present there had been no chance. It wasn't like things were going well with the regular fights down below. With fewer people, they would have been overrun and they wouldn't even have had a chance to go up the mountain.

Even when she finally struck Mourning down his large raid guild had been holding waves of dark reptilian Visage at bay in the city below. Gilduirn was a hell of a player no matter what you thought about him, and if he hadn’t been killed in spectacular fashion by Mourning, Amelia never would have known the spell that the evil world boss mage was going to cast at her at the last moment. She never would have reflected it and the Visage would be laying siege to the southern kingdoms.

“Gilduirn is strong.” She said at last. In part, she had selected him to be one of the 25 players she would take into the special event because she felt that he had been dealt a losing hand from the beginning. Despite the fact that he hadn’t had access to the higher level dungeons he had still hired a fleet of ships and sought prey on the seas much as Raven had done, leveling over 700 other players to above 200. That in itself was an incredible feat.

“He agreed to come along then?” Aidan asked. He was soon busy stuffing his mouth full of pasta as he waited for a reply.

“He said he would come,” Amelia replied hesitantly. Gilduirn had actually been incredibly reluctant to agree. He didn’t seem to think that the quest would amount to anything, and was a little worried that everyone was still mad at him. She didn’t blame him really. World quests didn’t come out of jobs very often. He had agreed to try it out but had warned that he was having a hard enough time keeping his guild together without wasting time on fruitless endeavors. Amelia secretly suspected he was only agreeing to come along because he felt like he owed her.

“Rat and Ridley and the ones we selected from Shadow Fall are coming along,” Hunter added. She only mentioned Rat and Ridley by name because she knew that Amelia and the rest had already met them. The rest she omitted because as far as Aidan, Amelia, Raven, and Forsythe were concerned they were just names thus far and not people.

“Justin?” Aidan asked.

“Yeah. He’s going to come. He did really well on the field near Blutonsi but I think he still wants to make up for Port Laudable.” Hunter speculated.

“Not his fault.” Forsythe decided as he sat down and began eating his own food.

“I agree. No use telling him though. I almost can’t stand him anymore. I mean I didn’t make this guild to raid. So having someone apologize to me for dying all day long is getting really old.” Hunter complained. Amelia decided that even if her name was Tali she would always be Hunter in her mind.

“Well, hopefully, he feels like he makes up for it when we save the Halves.” Amelia shrugged. She felt better now that there was a date set. It had seemed wildly speculative when she had first proposed the idea, but now that there were people who were onboard and a date set it seemed more solid.