The journey to Whisperton proved entirely uneventful. Neither a drudge nor a squo-bloo accosted the group. It could have been due to many reasons, but their sheer numbers no doubt played a part in the safety of their passage. Upon arrival in the little town, they immediately went to speak with the mayor.

A short balding Ha' Ruulian, with a bit of pudge around the middle, he had the kindly appearance of someone's middle-aged father. "Ah, this is a most auspicious day indeed. Sir Chaine, The Hero of Ha' Ruul, Prince Skhyaht, the goddess sent exotic foreign hero prince, and our own dearly beloved princess Vita have come to call upon us. What good fortune has befallen the town of Whisperton?"

Princess Vita began to greet the mayor only to stop and then to slowly blink. She turned to Scott, her eyes wide. "Prince Skhyaht? Exotic foreign hero prince?"

Scott nodded to her. "It's how they know me."

The mayor drew back a little then clapped his hands together while a joyous expression lit up his face. "Good prince! Your curse has been lifted!"

"Yes. After helping your town, the er... goddess, saw fit to allow me to speak properly once more," said Scott. While he had not gone into too many details, obviously, he had shared a story about why he spoke the way that he did. He was a foreign adventurer who had been given a chance to remove a terrible curse by performing good deeds.

"Wonderful!" exclaimed the mayor once more. "We owe you a debt of thanks."

"You owe me nothing... I was happy to help," replied Scott with a lop-sided smile. It wasn't like most of the mission was that difficult. Other than a few tricky bosses, it amounted to little more than a typical side mission.

"You're a prince?" pressed Vita once more.

Chain rolled his eyes. Meanwhile, the others looked to Scott curiously.

"You know what I am," said Scott amiably.

Vita blinked once more then offered a genial smile. "This is true. Your position is one that allows for a myriad of titles."

Did he like it when people called him a prince? Even he did not know. Scott simply saw no reason to set the record straight since he was unlikely to see most of these people again in the future. Unless a mission sent him back this way, this could be the last that he saw of Whisperton.

The story that a foreign hero prince had come to protect the people from the drudge invasion was one they would talk about for some time. They had taken to it quite freely, and it hurt nothing to allow them to tell it the way that they wanted. It's not like he even did that much for the town, but they acted like he had personally stood between them and destruction. It was a story to be told during the long hours of the night, and it became more impressive with each retelling. Bored people did like to tell tales, after all.

"Oho... a foreign prince traveling in the company of our dear princess," the mayor's eyes lit up as though he had discovered the juiciest of gossip.

"These people think you're royalty, beloved?" asked Saelil. The fact that she inserted her favored pet name for him into the conversation was not lost on the others.

"Yeah," he said. Scott chose to come clean in that moment since no one seemed interested in dropping that conversational note. "It's just something Etragar came up with."

He stopped then acquired a thoughtful expression. A moment later he grinned and said, "Though technically it might even be true."

"When did you become royalty?" asked Saelil.

"It's the Ferakai blood in my veins. The strongest Ferakai on any world is automatically considered to be the leader of the Ferakai there," he said.

Scott chuckled at his friends continued, "Claiming to be a king might be a bit much given I may be the only Ferakai left, and I'm not currently purely Ferakai. Calling myself 'The Prince of all Ferakai' isn't actually wrong since I'm also the only one here."

He snickered then put his hand to his forehead and laughed a little. Somehow, he had become a low-budget Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z. The best part was that it could not possibly ever come back to bite him in the ass to claim such a title. There were no Ferakai around to take offense. They were nearly an extinct race after all. Nope, he was perfectly safe to openly make such a statement.

The discussion about his royal station eventually came to an end, and they returned to the business at hand. The mayor listened to the harrowing tale of his princess, and how she had been kidnapped. The friends accompanying her had rescued her and now they sought to return to Ha' Ruul castle.

The mayor sighed loudly once he heard her tale. His eyes filled with remorse, he looked up at her. "My apologies princess, but we have no rafts. Not long after the foreign hero prince left us, a monstrously large squo-bloo appeared. All of our rafts have been destroyed. No one was hurt badly, but it controls the river south of town. It will be several days, perhaps an entire week, before we can build a new raft that can survive the trip down river this time of year, and even then the monster will only destroy it."

"A giant monster?" asked Scott and Chaine simultaneously. Each of them held an expression that was a mixture of excitement and intrigue.

"Wait? Could it be that the heroes wish to face the beast? I assure you, it is quite formidable," said the mayor.

Scott and Chaine looked to each other then nodded. Scott then looked to his team and they also seemed interested in the fight.

Vita spoke up. "It seems that we must earn our keep, good mayor. However, the lack of a raft is concerning."

The mayor continued to be quite sorrowful, but his hands were tied. Scott came up with an alternate solution.

"You use warp zones to travel from one world to the next, correct?" he asked Vita.

"Yes. They are only used for official business usually. Why do you ask, good prince?" she asked him with a smile.

Scott chuckled at her reference to him as a prince then said, "Well. I had hoped that we could travel across the land here without incident. How long would it take to reach Ha' Ruul castle if we traveled to Imperial Garden?"

"Ah, the warp zone? If you can take us to a point near the warp zone area, we can visit the hub city. The zone connections to that place are not static, but open and close at certain intervals. We could arrive in three days at most," she said. "Though, it would be potentially far more dangerous to use that method of travel depending on where the next warp to Ha' Ruul castle might open."

"Dangerous how?" asked Samantha, "Would there be enemy targets, or is it some other concern?"

"The warp gates link to different worlds. We would basically need to make a travel itinerary," said Vita. "We would leave the hub city and head to a different world, then follow the travel guide to the warp gate that would lead to Ha' Ruul Castle. While there are direct routes from the hub-city to Ha' Ruul in general, the travel itinerary is the only method to reach the castle directly."

"I see, so we won't know what world we have to travel to, or how dangerous the trip will be until we get there?" asked Scott.

"Correct," said Vita. "If the trip seems to be too dangerous, we would have to wait until the next alignment. It usually takes about half of a day for a new warp gate travel itinerary to appear."

"How much does all of that usually cost?" asked Scott.

"Travel through such gates are free. The itinerary itself is handled by a merchant group, but Ha' Ruul has an account with them. They will simply charge the fees to the crown," said Vita.

Travel through Ha' Ruul itself was usually fairly safe during the day if the travelers kept to main roads. It was the main reason he wanted to travel that way in the first place. Returning the princess to her castle was the top priority. The use of the warp gates might prove more dangerous, however the process intrigued Scott greatly. Would heading to an entirely different world than one he knew unlock that world? It could be a free chance to get access to some place new!

"We may need to return you to the castle through those means if we wish to do so quickly... First things, first, though—" said Scott. Chaine finished his sentence for him. "We have an overgrown Squo-Bloo to hunt."