Sounds of bubbling, scraping and humming filled the air of a cosy kitchen in which a man just finished making his dinner. A smile spread on his face as he tasted the soup he was brewing with a ladle.

It's finished. My favorite champignon creme soup!

Caleb filled his plate with the steaming soup and carefully put it on the table to the other dishes.

Ahh there is nothing better after a hard day at work than my favorite soup, some meat covered in un poco di pesto genovese as it was straight from a restaurant and and of course a bit of salad.

A shadow appeared for a second on his face as he sat down.

A bit of company also wouldn't be too bad... Ah well Rose had already an arrangement so she is hanging out with friends. I'll just pack away her portion for later, same for Blake.

Caleb sighed while stirring his soup with a spoon.

I wonder what he's doing right now... He said that he'll just go raise his level, but you never know with him. I still think I'm dreaming when I remember what he discovered by pure accident... I'm a bit worried he barely slept last night and I don't want that his eating habits get any worse... One more day and I'll have a talk with him about this, but I can't really say that I don't understand him... He discovered a whole new world!

A voice with mixed playfulness and annoyedness came from behind him.

-''Ah dinner, I must have overheard you notifying me. Now you just need to prepare the second plate and are dinner date can begin.''

Caleb slowly closed his eyes as he recognised the source of the voice.

Oh no, I totally forgot about her! She decided to stay for the time being... My frustration aside I actually didn't make food for her!

Caleb slowly growled and stood up.

-''Stop teasing and sit down while I make you something to eat.''

Teruna grimaced and sat down.

-''You actually forgot about me? Now that's just being a bad host.''

Caleb just waved his hand hastily.

-''I know, be quiet. It was a tough work day cut me some slack.''

What should I make for her? Up till now we just gave her anything we ate, but what does she like?

-''What would you like to eat? Maybe some pasta with herb sauce and a fruit salad?''

That is what hedgehogs would like if I'm not wrong...

She looked at him and just laughed.

-''I am just a normal human right now so something normal will do. Also normal hedgehogs are omnivores not herbivores silly. And you probably noticed that I'm not a normal hedgehog or one at all right now. I wouldn't mind some fruit for dessert though if it's not asking too much.''

Caleb nodded with a smile.

-''No not at all. Wait for a bit.''

He turned and quickly started taking various ingredients out of his cupboard and fridge.

I'll just do something that doesn't need much time and tastes well.

He quickly sliced the bread and took few pieces of it. He put them all into the frying pan and slowly let it warm up. After that was done he took a bottle of olive oil and put some on every slice. The bread quickly absorbed it and changed colours.

That should be enough, better a bit less than drowning it.

The bottle was put aside and he paid attention to the frying bread so that it doesn't burn and gets an even colour. After some time he took the bread out and put a few slices of cheese on the pan. Not even a few minutes passed before the cheese was melted and ready to be put on the bread.

Well it's done. Now just the finishing touches.

He skillfully put a little bit of seasoning on the melted cheese and two tomato slices on each piece.

With the full plate he turned around to present it to Teruna who, as he discovered, came closer to see his cooking.

-''Here it's nothing special, but I'm fairly confident you'll like it. I had plenty of practice with my kids.''

She received the plate with big eyes and thanked Caleb.

-'' You are amazing to make something this good looking in such a short time. Do you make this for a living?''

Caleb looked at her with a really confused expression.

She is serious, isn't she? I guess she didn't really come in contact with real cooking during the years of running. Also I didn't really make any real meals since that shock...

He smiled gently while seeing Teruna eat greedily.

-''Looks like you enjoy it. Next time I'll make you something even better. This is just a simple dish.''

Her life must have been one hardship after the other...

She stopped gulping down her food for a second and looked at Caleb with a playful expression.

-''Oh? Are you trying to impress me?''

He sighed.

-''If you continue like that, I'll stop treating you nicely. Also this is normal hospitality.''

She snickered and they both continued to enjoy their meals. They took their time and and finished with satisfied expressions, Teruna even licked her fingers.

Caleb puffed amusedly.

Manners are also something she didn't really come in contact with.

He offered her a napkin to clean herself and started to chat a bit.

-''So do you have any idea what my son is up to right now?''

She looked at him confusedly.

-''Didn't he say that he'll raise his level?''

Caleb threw her an amused glance.

-''Yes, he did. But I can't really relax. He is currently in another world, isn't he?

Teruna nodded.

-''Yes, but he should be safe right now. Even better, the faster he gets stronger the safer he will be.''

He sighed and drank a bit of water.

-''We need to have another big conversation soon. Too much happened too fast, we need to plan things out. You and Blake just arranged some bits and pieces for the start.''

Caleb snorted when he saw how her eyebrows rose, but continued with a calm voice.

-''Your plan is to vague and doesn't take the big picture into account. Also even if you had planned out in the direction you want nothing good would come out of it.''

Teruna leaned back with her arms crossed and glared at him.

-''Is that so? Lets just ignore for a second the fact that my plan is supposedly not detailed enough. What's wrong with its direction?''

Caleb slowly stood up and headed towards a nearby door.

-''Give me a minute. This could be a tricky conversation.''

Teruna watched him leave with mixed interest and anger. Moments later he came back with a dark bottle in his hands and waved again for her to be patient but she just laughed up with very little humor in it.

-''You are sending very mixed signals. Is this a date, a normal dinner or a lecture? I'd be thrilled if you would choose one and stick to it.''

Caleb's voice was heard from the kitchen.

-''A nice talk is part of dinner in my house, also this is the best time to address some topics from adult to semi-adult.''

Teruna's eyebrows rose and her voice was soaked with suppressed fury.

-''Semi-adult?''

A chuckle was quickly silenced and Caleb's voice was heard again.

-''There is more to being an adult than years, but I'm sure you will acquire these traits soon enough.''

A killer glare was pointed at him.

-''I assure you that the circumstances I lived in made me grow up quite fast.''

Clicking sounds came out of the kitchen for a few moments and Caleb spoke up again.

-''I'm sure you went through hardships I can't even begin to imagine, but I think that exactly that is the problem. You always ran and never had contact with anyone out of your little hedgehog group which was also on the run for presumably centuries. You don't know how the world works and you certainly don't know your enemy.''

Teruna was outraged.

-''You don't even know the first thing about my world or my enemy and you lecture ME?!''

Caleb came into the room carrying two glasses filled with wine.

-''I do. Here this is yours.''

She grabbed the glass furiously out of his hand.

-''Continue! This certainly isn't all you have to say, right?!''

He calmly sat down again and took a sip of wine.

-''No, I assure you, it isn't. I just thought that this might come in handy as a digestive and to ease the conversation.''

He tilted the glass to one side and the other while looking at it's colour.

-''You want to restore your faction, build a home for your kin and make sure that the little ones can live without fear in their hearts. The rules protect you now so your aim changed from survival at all cost to prosper. Am I right up till now?''

She looked at him with a puzzled expression and nodded.

-''Go on.''

He took a longer sip before continuing.

-''I'm sad to say this, but you are naive. Of course they have other ways of getting rid of you and they probably aren't even that complicated. I may not know your world or enemies, but you don't seem quite different from normal people so there is no reason to think that your way of operating vastly differs from ours.''

Teruna raised her hand and wanted to say something but he signaled her to be silent as he wasn't finished.

-''You are still being hunted. There is no such possibility as relax and develop your faction. Do you think that they would tolerate their prey suddenly being immune to their conventional hunting method? Oh, I'm sure that will work out especially when the word comes out that the most notorious faction in history tries to make a comeback. And it doesn't matter what kind of comeback.''

Teruna was in deep thought but remarked with a silent voice.

-''Well the most notorious faction might be a little bit much...''

Caleb steadily gazed at her.

-''All factions rallied against you, fought, won and are trying to exterminate you for hundreds of years.''

Teruna looked down and took a few gulps of her wine. Caleb continued.

-''Look I have to make this as clear as possible. You are misunderstanding your position and I know what will happen if you don't face the facts.''

She looked at him dejectedly already knowing what his answer will be.

-'' You, your faction and probably even Blake, will die. It is nice that you are protected by the rules because of your new human leader, but you are approaching the situation from a wrong angle. These rules that you got aren't a shield that will suddenly allow you to coexist with all other factions and protect you from your hunters.''

A bit of energy and defiance returned to her eyes.

-''We respawn just like they do! All these rules makes us equal to them, they can't continue exterminating us!''

Caleb sighed.

-''They can't? Do you really believe that? They really don't have a way to kill you?''

Her gaze which lost the former defiance dropped, but she remained silent.

Caleb thought for a few seconds and continued again in a calm manner.

-''There is always a way. Especially for such deeds, no force would cripple itself with rules that could potentially harm them later. A lot of time has passed, but I had also played some online games in the past. If the concept didn't change fundamentally then I can tell you with absolute confidence that your faction can still be annihilated. Whether by some event or a really quick war it doesn't matter. One thing must be in your head at all times; Reveal yourself and you die.''

She gulped visibly disturbed. A small, sad smile appeared on Caleb's lips.

-''I said that the rules aren't a shield, didn't I?''

Teruna answered with a monotone voice while deeply immersed in her thoughts.

-''You did.''

-''I might have failed to mention the reason. The rules are your sword, your fighting chance.''

She looked up and urged him to continue.

-''Explain yourself.''

-''The defense it provides is honestly near to nothing. If you stay in one place and try to make a faction city you are dead as soon as they get to know about it. You would have to continue running as you did in the past and the defense would just be good for one or two times when you get caught. They would figure out that the old way doesn't work and an event would be made.''

She looked at him with a confused expression and he started to elaborate.

-''You see if they really did make your world similar to a game then smaller groups or even single players oftenly get chances that help them quite a lot. If I'm correct then we have a shot at fighting for your freedom. It's a very, very small shot but we will have to make do. Blake is a player which joined a faction that is nearly destroyed. Moreover he is the leader of it. We mustn't forget that it is still a real world but it was modified to act like a game. There is a good probability that he will get quests and possibilities that can help him out.''

Teruna looked a bit sceptical and wanted to object but Caleb signaled her to be patient.

-''There is no way to guarantee that but I'm fairly certain that I'm correct. You turned him into something that's a mix of a player and a resident of your world. I know you mentioned that some residents of your world pretended to be players, but I don't think that it's the real thing. We should keep in mind that the world turned into a game like place. I doubt that they have control over the world or they would have tracked you all down in seconds. Now we need to think how that affects things. This world may have altered because of them but it is far out of their grasp because they metaphorically pushed it away from them. ''

She interrupted him.

-''But they made the changes! So everything that is different is known to them.''

Caleb sighed.

-''Then why did you and you faction survive so long? They pushed the world forcibly in one direction but they played with forces far over their heads so the world balanced itself out with new rules, attributes and secrets. Games are full of unexpected twists and turns. Your people may have started the game but I can tell you that they aren't in control of it.''

Teruna slowly nodded.

-''And now it's on us to explore the possibilities of the world and I think that Blake caught the right scent. Exploit real life weaknesses with the gaming possibilities and vice versa. And for that reason I need you to stay absolutely quiet about this conversation in front of Blake.''

She narrowed her eyes.

-''Explain that a bit better.''

Caleb finished his glass in one gulp and continued.

-''The most difficult part here is to start off. He needs an open mind and as much imagination as he can muster. He must mix and exploit both sides of your world as good as he can and we don't want him to be under stress. His goal right now is quite close to what it has to be so we can remain silent about this in front of him. I assure you though that he will figure it out soon enough, if he didn't already.''

He pointed his finger at Teruna.

-''Your task is to change Blake's goal from being close to the actual one to being the actual one. If I understood correctly you are currently trying to get parts that will strengthen you dungeon and city, right?''

She nodded.

-''We do need to strengthen our faction but we do not need to work in the economical direction Blake and you planned. If we did that we would need to reveal to people that the Hedgehog faction isn't dead and no matter how well Blake would act that would be the sure end, with or without the protection from the rules.That means that we need to work on our offensive abilities, if we ever get into the situation where we need to barricade ourselves into some castle you plan on building or something similar then it's already over.''

Teruna grumbled while thinking and took a long sip.

-''Offense is our only chance so why not put everything on it, hm? And we need to stay hidden from their radar...''

Caleb smiled.

-''Good, you are starting to comprehend your situation. You should somehow get Blake to work on that aspect of the faction's strength, without telling him the true cause. He will figure it out soon enough and I really can't stress enough that an open mind and calm manner will make him much more useful than him being stiff and forcing ideas to come. ''

She shook her head.

-''I don't like the idea of not telling him. He might become more motivated and less easily distracted if he knew what we are talking about now.''

He thought for a few moments.

-''That would be the obvious thing to do, but lets not forget that this is a world that is disguised as a game. He needs to think out of the box to get us some assets and advantages.''

Teruna nodded with mixed feelings.

-''Both sides have their advantages... Ok, I'll try to shift his goal to pure offense. I'm not sure how but I'll figure it out. Also we should remind him that it is vital for our faction to stay in the shadows hidden from the others. Lets talk a bit more about what we should do now. The little ones will soon finish their ritual, so we should plan out what their next task will be. They don't have Blake's power that comes from him being a mixed player or whatever you want to call it but we can put them to good use nonetheless.''

Caleb smirked and spun his empty glass with his fingers.

-''I'm glad that you understand. He who fails to prepare prepares to fail and in our case failing means dying.''

Teruna looked at Caleb confusedly.

-''Our?''

He nodded and stood up.

-''You don't really think that I would let Blake risk his life and sit idly while he does it, right? Now give me your glass so I can go and refill it.''

He walked with slow footsteps to the kitchen.

-''This will be a long talk there are a lot of things we need to plan out as good as we can. We will let Blake do his own thing but he won't be the only one that will work on regaining the might of your faction. Our chance is nearly nonexistent, but a chance nevertheless.''

A sinister smile crept on his face.

****

Thanks for reading:)

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