“Oh… oh shit!” Van thought as he drew closer.

A group of about a dozen led by a woman, all in ranger gear were talking to Kella in front of the portal that led into his soul realm. Their bodies were toned, and their eyes sharp, they carried with them an assortment of tools for any occasion that they might face, some of them unique. They carried themselves with quiet confidence, all of them clearly having years of experience.

But right now, they were staring at his portal that led into his soul realm, asking Kella some pointed questions that she clearly didn’t seem comfortable answering. And Van couldn’t blame her, after all, he had no plans for anyone finding out he could create a portal straight into his soul realm. The fairies and refugees were one thing, they could be trusted to keep quiet, and fairies always know how to keep a secret. But even if these rangers knew how to as well, he didn’t want any rumors going around about what he could do.

Van did a quick jog and got over there as soon as possible, hoping that it would look more like he was just desperate to meet the rangers and not because of the portal. As he drew close, he began to walk in measured strides with a mix of urgency, and confidence. “Hello there, are you the advance party my parents sent to help us?” looking at the group with a calm expression, with a hint of relief, like nothing was wrong other than the giant fungus growing in the background.

The lead ranger pursed her lips while Kella simultaneously looked relieved and became stiff, now that her master was here. The sharp eyes of the ranger then roved Van for a quick second, as if to gauge if he was important enough to talk to or not. After all, for all she knew, he was one of those pampered little prince’s and the real one in charge would be Kella. After a moment’s thought, so as not to be rude to nobility, she addressed Van in a reserved manner, hiding whatever annoyance she might have deep underneath.

“Hello… I’m Yesi… and this is my second in command, Yassan.” pointing with her head a male ranger who looked like a younger brother. “We were sent by lord Alvaroz and your mother’s to pick you up and report…” her eyes wandered to the portal and the growing fungus. “Any… complications or strange phenomena… that we might meet along the way…” There was an undertone of a question with the way she said all that and the way her gaze went back and forth to the portal, the fungus, and Van and Kella.

“Ah yes…” Van said, thinking quickly. “It is quite amazing, isn’t it? Fairy portal technology…” he said, looking over at the portal in question.

The ranger pursed her lips. “Fairy portal technology?” she asked.

Van nodded. “They have things called fairy gates that they use to help get them around the forest. Have you heard of it?” he asked, wondering how much she might know to gauge how much he should bullshit.

Yesi hesitated, looking a little unsure. “I have heard… rumors…” she admitted.

Van smiled, looking excited as he began to explain. “Well! You won’t believe this, but after we offered protection to the refugees, some fairies decided to open up a portal that would lead to some fairy home far away! Already we have saved tens of thousands if not more because of it. It is also one of the reasons why we stayed so long, to help them in their time of need.”

Yesi looked between him and the portal, wondering how much of this is true. What she couldn’t have known… was that while she was trying to process this information, Van was mentally speaking to Amie and Lyn about what was happening and explaining the situation. Already, Amie was on the way to meet the rangers to try to better explain things over.

(“sorry, I hope you don’t mind me throwing you under the bus like this…”) Van said to Amie.

(“I don’t know what a bus is, but I can understand why you would want to keep this secret. Don’t worry about it, it’s not that big of a deal, I’ll handle things once I get there, just wait for me.”) Amie replied.

“May we… enter this portal?” Yesi asked, sounding a little suspicious, and also like she would try to enter whether or not he gave his consent.

“I wouldn’t recommend it, you cannot enter the portal without permission, even if you wanted to. The fairies are very protective of their portal technology.” Van explained, not technically lying since he could choose who enters or not.

“Hmm…” Yesi looked at the portal once more suspiciously.

“But the real issue here,” Van continued, “is… well… that…” pointing at the growing fungus in the background with a worried look. “Many of the fairies are abandoning the forest en masse because of it, and are desperate for any form of help. If I have to be honest, I don’t know if I can do any more than this…” Looking a little crestfallen.

He then looked up at Yesi, as if to search for some semblance of hope. “Do you know what’s going on here? What is all that? And why is the forest becoming all weird? Can you and your rangers deal with something like that?” his tone, somewhat questioning and pleading, to give the impression he was desperate for some sort of comfort.

Yesi hesitated, looking towards the fungus, the portal, and then sharing a look with Yassan before turning back to Van. “you don’t need to worry,” she said, her back straightening up and looking down on him with reserved confidence. “We rangers are the best of the best sir, I think it’s best that you pack your things and get ready to leave while I talk to your… knight… We’ll have you back home sipping tea in no time.” her professionalism taking over and deciding to save some of her own questions for later. She had a job to do after all…

Inwardly Van twitched at being so dismissed as if he was some male that liked tea parties or played house while the ‘adults’ talked about him over his head. Kella gave a sideways glance towards Van but was surprised by how well he handled himself, his expression now looking like one of relief then annoyance, playing a part like an expert actor.

“Thank you Yesi…” Van said with obvious relief on his face, “you have no idea how good that sounds. We were already making preparations to leave at a moment's notice. Just give me an hour and we should be good to go.” he then turned to leave, then hesitated and turned back, “but… just to be sure… What will you do about that fungus?” he asked worriedly. “I hope this won’t affect the forest too much and you have a plan to deal with something like this. I don’t want to worry about such a thing on our way back…”

“That is not something you need be concerned about anymore. Your parents have asked us to escort you out as soon as possible instead of waiting for their arrival. They are gathering their forces and making sure they are prepared for the subjugation of the forest as thoroughly as possible. You just need to leave this to the professionals, you will be safe, don’t worry. We’ll be waiting here for your return, don’t make us wait too long though…” Yesi said, dismissing his concern and already turning away to talk to Kella.

Van’s face twitched, but other than that it didn’t change. He didn’t really take her rudeness to heart, she was just doing her job and probably had to deal with a bunch of ‘pampered little prince’s’ playing adventure maybe one to many times… but it still annoyed him very much…

Taking a small breath, he turned back towards his cabin to tell Luna and pack his things. As he walked, he felt Amie leave the portal and start getting into a deep conversation with Yesi, who was intimated a little by Amie’s royal entourage and overbearing demeanor.

“You get her, Amie!” Van thought with some amusement as he glanced back.

The two then seemed to get into some heated debate about who had the right to do what. But that didn’t concern Van, so he quickly opened up the door of his cabin and walked inside, explaining what happened so far to Luna who had finally gotten changed and was packing up a few of her things as well.

Van talked to her about what happened, and then helped her back the rest of her things. He then followed this up by sending mental commands to Isa, Gwen, Sela, and a few others to also start packing up their things and that they will be leaving on foot very soon. Inwardly, Van was thankful that Sephira and Iris were already in his soul realm, and hoped that the rangers wouldn’t be too surprised by Rosy who would be carrying the rest of their stuff.

Leaving a now empty cabin, Van also made sure to mentally command his followers to not leave his soul realm, any who were still inside of it that is. Those who were out stayed out, and those who were in, stayed in. He didn’t want the rangers to know that his followers could go in and out whenever they wanted, for that may lead into questions he didn’t want to answer.

As he made his way back to where he was before, he noticed a few fairies surrounding the portal, doing something to it. Amie then mentally asked him if it was okay to close the portal, to which he complied, helping the fairies shrink the portal down to nothing and making sure to cover up the magic circle underneath, just in case any of the rangers knew anything about runes.

“Are you ready to go?” Yesi asked, sounding terse and a bit mad.

Van was slightly taken aback by the bad attitude, but kept it to himself, glancing towards Amie who looked like she had won a hard-fought battle, though at great cost. Perhaps debating with the ranger about who shared blame for the situation they were in? Or maybe because Amie kept quiet about how the portal tech worked? He would have to ask about it later…

“Yes, me and my wife are ready to leave,” he said, then as if the idea just came to him. “We also have tamed a bear to also help us carry stuff around, do you mind if we bring her along?”

“Sure, just hurry it up, we’ll be leaving soon,” Yesi said curtly, then turned to Amie with a slight glare. “Queen Amelia…please spare some time in the future to discuss the… matters brought up by our conversation with the commander before leaving the forest proper… I think you’ll find the difference in opinion with the druids guild and the knight ranger general to be… enlightening… whoever is to blame for all this… must pay an appropriate price…” sounding like she could barely contain her feelings on the matter. It was clear that she was the sort of woman that didn’t like to deal with bullshit or play petty politics and had a short fuse for both of them if her tone was anything to go by.

Amie nodded sagely, her face a complete mask with a plastic smile. “I’ll keep that in mind. Do not worry, I'll make sure to talk to the ‘proper’ authorities before leaving the forest completely. You have my word.” sounding completely professional, but Van knew her enough to know she was inwardly annoyed.

Van then watched the two go their separate ways, with Amie telling him that she had to leave to do a few things before coming with. Then promptly turned to do those things.

“What was that about?” Luna asked, looking confused.

“No idea…” Van said. “But probably not good… at least mentally speaking… I feel like there's going to be a lot of headaches in the future for both sides…”

“Hmm…” was all Luna replied with.

The two then looked between the receding backs of the rangers and Amie and her guard for a moment before turning to the stable where they kept Rosy. planning to hook her up with their stuff before leaving.

After a few moments, they were done and heading towards the ranger group with Rosy in tow. The rangers looked up in surprise as they approached, and watched Rosy warily, Yesi came over, eyeing the large bear.

“Is that thing tamed?” she asked, sounding like she really didn’t believe a bunch of kids could tame something of this size and power. She could feel that the bear was stronger than it first appeared, so was unsure if Van and Luna had true control over it.

“Rosy is a good girl,” Luna said. “She will protect us while we leave the forest and even give us a ride!” smiling widely and proudly.

Yesi pursed her lips. It seems to be a bad habit of hers to do so whenever something wasn’t going her way or when met with something strange. “Fine… but my rangers will keep an eye on it just in case…” not truly believing that they had such a powerful beast under control.

She then turned her eyes from the bear to Van and Luna. “there has been some change of plans… I will be taking some of my girls to head towards the giant fungus growing over there. Yassan and his group will be taking you to the camp at the outskirts of the forest. Where your parents will no doubt be waiting for you. You are to leave immediately… any questions?” though it sounded like she didn’t want to answer any.

Van frowned a little. “How fast will we be traveling? It took us a few days to arrive here when we first entered the forest. So that means we will have to take a few days to arrive back home through this infested forest.” sounding a little concerned.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Yesi said. “We rangers know shortcuts to help us travel through the forest quickly. And that fairy queen offered a guide to show us through any fairy trails that might be along the way. If all things work out, we will be back home before the end of the day.”

“Fairy trails?” Van asked the first time he was hearing such a thing.

Yesi grunted. “Think of it as some sort of magical pathway or highway that fairies enchant to help them travel from one location to the other… I’m surprised that since they were willing to show you their portal tech that they hide that part from you… though I suppose that only shows how desperate they were…” she said, while inwardly some of her suspicions that Van might be hiding something lessened, if only a little.

“Well… a lot of things happened… agreements and promises made… before they showed me something like their portal tech…” Van said. Now that he thought about it, he should be surprised by how easily and willingly they were sharing their fairy knowledge with him. “I suppose it really goes to show it all about who you know…” thinking about Lyn, who introduced him to Amie and then so on and so forth.

“Hmm…” Yesi said then shook her head. “Well that doesn’t matter,” she then pointed with her head towards Yassan’s group. “Get going, the sooner you leave the better it is for everyone.”

Van frowned at her rudeness but said nothing on the matter. Instead, he said his goodbyes and helped Luna up on Rosy before following after. He then started to give mental commands to all those still in the fort to form up on him and Luna, and soon, Isa, Gwen, and many of the others were converging on one spot.

There were still about fifty or so individuals left in the fort, mostly of the goblin variety. Bellwin was in her wolf form, Allowing Isa to ride her. Gwen and Agnès and her mother got up on Rosy. Sela, Sena, and Venus were in his soul realm, so he didn’t have to worry about them. Within a few minutes, everyone was packed up and ready to go, a few fairies hovering about to help where they could.

After a few last minute checkups by Yassan and his group, to make sure everything was ready and no one was left behind, they took the lead, Rosy following close behind while Kella took the rear.

Yassan led the way, but a small fairy guide also hovered nearby to help give advice and point out unique paths that they could use.

Van was a little interested in Yassan, he was a male just like him, and it was clear his group was similar to Van’s, in that his rangers were probably also his lovers or something like that. Van kinda wanted to ask him how he got into the rangering business, as well as a few other questions since the only males he knew of on a first name basis were those that worked at the lover’s guild.

Van watched Yassan as he picked out pathways with the fairies' help and guided their small group through the forest. Sometimes having to work or go around certain obstacles due to the corruption of the red knives.

Whether it was a testament to Yassan’s skill or knowledge, they were only attacked once so far by a small horde of infected giant insects. And the skill Yassan and his rangers showed impressed Van greatly, for, within moments of the attack, the rangers began firing their arrows before Van even had a chance to notice there were any threats around. They killed the small horde of insects with precision and grace, each arrow killing one bug, sometimes two.

Like this, the hours passed, and day slowly turned into night. At first, Van worried that they might not make it. But suddenly he noticed a light in the distance… unbelievable, they actually made it, though a little late, they made it to the base camp within one day…

Van was amazed by this, for the whole time he was prepared to be told to help set up camp, and when it started to get dark, he started to get worried. But to actually get here on time… well, that was impressive…

But what was even more impressive… was what he saw next…