As events continued to transpire in the Solusand Dominion, there were other beings hard at work elsewhere in the world. To be more precise, there were at the very least five beings doing their thing, and that ‘thing’ was attempting to find Vaile.

Yes, you all know who and what this little side story is about, and what will come of it; The Five-Clawed Paw of the Rattan Under-Empire was working its tails off trying to locate where their ‘prize’ had gone, to minimal success at best. As one might expect, this was due to several factors, of which included Vaile going VERY far away, the Under-Empire not having expanded that far, the unfathomable objects which blocked much of the powers of those not a part of The Races and the author of this novel refusing to let them force Vaile to leave the Book early.

And, with all of those factors at play, the crazy rat ladies were almost beside themselves with panic, fearing that without their ‘love’ and ‘care’ Vaile had gone and gotten himself killed somewhere in the middle of fuck-all nowhere, leaving them without their hearts’ desire. In case you, dear reader, haven’t noticed yet and are still hopeful that the crazy rat ladies view Vaile as a person with rights and worth beyond being a mere tool for self-gratification and procreation, let me tell you now that said women did not in any way weep for ‘Vaile the Person’ potentially being dead.

No, they were afraid that their ticket to power, prestige, control and self-enjoyment was potentially gone forever. So, yeah, they were not missing his witty banter, his charming personality or his worth as a sapient being; they were missing the power and enjoyment that would have come if they had fully broken him and made him their toy without any other Tamed Being knowing.

However, recently (and by ‘recently’ I mean roughly 5 minutes ago by their time) they had been able to reestablish contact with someone they had long since thought lost forever. No, not Vaile, but rather Zahra I, the ‘divine’ Pharaoh of the Solusand Dominion. While one of their number and thus not ‘worthy’ of being called a God by their standards, the reveal that one of the fellow members of the old Alliance was not, in fact, dead and instead had been isolated by some sort of weird barrier was a shocker to be sure. Now, the five most powerful Rattan in the world sat down with a long-distance magical holographic projection of the undead monarch, who was all too willing to chat with all the rest of the more powerful members of the Alliance.

All had been going swimmingly, if rather boringly, as Zahra I caught everyone else up to speed on the events that led up to something big that she was refusing to reveal at the current moment, only saying that it was a surprise that she would reveal a bit later. As the talks dragged on, Chuu and the other four nearly fell asleep several times, at least until the big reveal caused them to bolt to full consciousness.

“… And so, that all leads to what transpired a relatively short while ago; the moment the tide began to shift into my favor with all the force of a great typhoon. Yes, it was at the time when that last village was put to the torch when a hero we are all so very familiar with came to save the day and set in motion events that could not be stopped.”

“Enough with the fancy words!” shouted the current leader of the Greenskin Hordes. “Get to the Vaile-damned point already!”

“I’m getting there, just please be patient. You’ll love who it was that showed up, you know.” Zahra replied, still rather coy about who and what was responsible for her nation’s turn of fortunes.

“Please, little one, do not waste our precious time. I have a horde of treasures to keep watch over and a nation to rule, so do hurry it up.” grumbled a large, winged reptilian creature.

“If I must spoil it so quickly, then so be it…” Zahra said with false sorrow and agony.

“GET ON WITH IT!” was the nearly universal reply she was met with.

“Fine! It is Vaile! Lord Vaile has returned and was the one to help us here in the Dominion! Are you happy now?!”

Zahra’s words were met with silence, but at least a few people in the group meeting were either at full attention or were now exceedingly interested in where their ‘prize’ had gone to.

“Is this true? Can the Precious One really have returned to us?” asked a massive spider.

“I can attest that He has indeed returned, as can Blaer and Dur’kor. That is to say nothing of those five over there, who were the first to come into contact with him once he arrived in the New World.” replied Nora, the current Monarch of the Trelawny Kingdom.

Eyes immediately fell first on the two Beastmen, then on the Bandit Queen, and then lastly on the five Rattan, who were now feeling rather exposed.

“And none of you wished to inform any of the other members of the Alliance that He had come back to us? Did you intend to keep Him for yourselves?!” demanded a being whose form was obscured with a large halo of light.

“We were also well aware of his presence on their plane.” said a being formed of nightmares, evil and shadow. “We simply felt it was best that he be allowed to do as he willed, wherever it was that he went. We are not his masters; thus, we have no right to decide his fate for ourselves.”

“AND YET YOU DIDN’T TELL ANYONE?!”

“We had reasons. Good reasons, but reasons we have no intention of disclosing. Ever.” said a certain horned and horny rat woman. “That aside, where is he at the current moment? Is he in a single location, under guard or what?”

“Well, you little troublemaker, you may have to find that out yourself. I heard about what was going on from the source.” Zahra replied in a tone that was playfully malicious.

“WE. DID. NOTHING. WRONG.” Chuu growled, followed shortly by the nodding of the other four Rattan nodding furiously.

“In your eyes, perhaps. But no, I will not make your intended task any easier. Solusand is a big place, so if you are going to try and take him for yourselves, you’d best start quickly. With how things are going, odds are you won’t be able to reach your goal in time to claim your prize.”

All eyes were now on Chuu and her fellow council members, which caused the five to shrink in their seats.

“Well, this certainly has been an amusing turn of events.” Muttered a large, kraken-like being whose voice and form seemed to not be that of a single being but of a mass of the psionic manifestation of others which were all being spoken at once but vocalized not through a normal manner but by the entity’s will vibrating the air itself.

“Yes, it has, now shall we put this issue to bed and continue?”

The meeting continued on for a while after that, but nothing was as impressive as the bombshell that Zahra had unleashed regarding Vaile and the Rattan Ruling Council’s ‘pursuit’ of him. Once the conference ended, the five were stuck with a massive headache. While they had not been penalized in any way, they now had the eyes of the world upon them, and every move they made would be scrutinized in the extreme.

But they now knew roughly where their prize was, and Vaile-damnit they were gonna get him if it was the last thing they did. Consequences be damned, they were gonna get some, and nothing was going to stop them from that!

…

Vaile, laying on his back in his room, immediately felt a chill run down his spine and the all-too-familiar feeling that he was being hunted once again. It was time to start prepping for an emergency teleport once again.