Andromeda was leaned against a fence, watching a group of men and women moving in several boxes and crates into a moderately sized building a short distance away. At the moment, she was in a small town named “Hoviss” on the northern edge of King’s Grove, not far from the mountain border with Landfall Coast farther north. She was fuming, but the mountain air did a lot to calm her. Ferdinand, and a majority of Legoria’s government once they were briefed, suggested that she be put on paid recuperative leave for a stretch of time following the events at Betel.

The Betel situation, especially Aeroae, was tearing the country apart. People were calling it "Betelian Vague," it affected millions and extended across continents. Reports emerged of similar symptoms in Halth and Karginath. The situation was so bad that even Halth was willing to sign a ceasefire while its effects were investigated. That is a large part of the reason why Ferdinand was busy, and why she was thrown to the side in King’s Grove. It didn’t seem that they cared overly much about what she wanted, which is to continue helping the recovery. But she got overruled by Ferdinand and given a few options. The least dramatic dramatic one was to operate an administrative position in King’s Grove. It just so happened that the location was a slow moving, low energy, and highly safe border town nestled in the mountains. One of his more radical suggests were to set her up in a villa in some large town farther north called Verdant Keep. Apparently it was some kind of resort town.

It was all a hot air, because as far as she knew, they knew full well that it was due to The Arbiter, but Ferdinand used the situation to kill two birds with one stone. It helped him cover up what really happened that day, and get his people back to King’s Grove.On that topic, The Arbiter was taken into custody, and being investigated to discern her true origin. Surprisingly, she was much more helpful then investigators were expecting. But even considering that, they found that her origins were unclear. Even the exact nature of her being wasn’t entirely obvious.

As it stood now, Andromeda’s identity as Arch Mage was to remain a secret, her official reason for being there was as a clerk helping in the King’s Grove recovery effort. Ironically, this was the exact opposite of what she was actually doing, but she tried not to let that bother her. Because of this, instead getting a normal home in town, she was allotted an old Traveler Corp guild hall that was being renovated for this purpose specifically. That’s actually a lie, because the original plan Ferdinand had was to have a whole new building built specifically for her. Which she had to vehemently argue against for several hours. That was a week ago, and that conversation was the last time she spoke to Ferdinand since.

Andromeda looked up to see one of the men moving things around walking toward her. He took off his hat when he approached and bowed his head. “Morning miss, we’ve about finished getting everything in, you’ll have to unpack and put it together, but its all in the rooms it should be. Did you need anything else?” The man asked. Andromeda thought about it, then a question jumped at her.

“Uhh, yeah… You guys were already here when I showed up yesterday, and I don’t how the pay is going to work. I wasn’t told before hand.” Andromeda asked.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. We were paid up front. We’ll be out of your hair before long.” The man said. He bowed his head and walked off down the road to where the others were setting up to have lunch.

Andromeda turned her head back to see Alice walking through the saloon doors of the hall, pulling off a pair of gloves and wiping her forehead with a handkerchief. “Man, there is almost no airflow through this building. I had to open all the windows just to be able to breathe.” She said. Alice had traded out her normal high society dress for more casual clothes. It helped too because they didn’t have running water or a bathroom in the building, so they would need to be working on that.

In the days past, Alice got Andromeda up to speed with what happened between her leaving Cylas and when they met again. The most major thing that happened was that her going on the “surprise trip” with Rigur practically set the capital on fire, and tabloids couldn’t be burned faster then they were printed. Sadly, it seemed to have driven a wedge between her and her family because her father’s masterful idea in this situation was to lean in and try to schmooze up the higher nobility saying her daughter was engaged to a lord. Rigur shot that suggestion down with extreme prejudice to avoid the scandal on top of his own work as a Lord, and it doesn’t even need to be said that Alice was less then pleased. So, instead of dealing with the compounding shitstorm that was becoming her life in the capital, Alice elected to come with Andromeda for the foreseeable future. Something Alice herself was already trying to find an excuse to do when this all came to light. Now she was helping Andromeda move in and would be helping in a volunteer capacity.

Alice as well got the full course on who and what Andromeda was, as well as all her eccentricities. Up to and including Whisper and White’s full introduction.

“It won’t be that bad once the wind starts moving through.” Andromeda said. Alice walked over and leaned against the fence along side her.

“This is a pretty nice place. Small town, out of the way.” Alice said. On that, Andromeda could agree. Hoviss was a small border town, about a thousand people in the town proper and another few thousand more in the general area. It was around the base of the Emerald Mountain range, but not so far up that there wasn’t still a well maintained road between there and the rest of the region. A very peaceful place overall.

“Doesn’t make it any easier knowing that I’m all the way out here and not helping.” Andromeda said.

“You killed yourself saving an entire island worth of people. You earned a little bit of rest.” Alice said. A shadow streaked across the ground, and Andromeda looked up toward the sky Whisper fly down, stopping to hover in front of them both. Andromeda had been using Whisper to do recon around the area and happened to get back just then.

“Andromeda. this is all you’ve been thinking about for days. If you keep going like this you’ll burn yourself out.” Whisper said. Andromeda leaned forward and off the fence.

“I know, I know… Come on, lets go get everything set up inside before Eli gets back. ” She said. Whisper fell back into Andromeda’s mind, and the pair of Andromeda and Alice walked back inside.

The building was not small by any means, originally used as the headquarters of a local Traveler Corp until they built a larger building on the other side of Hoviss. As such, it was meant to house a group of around twenty to thirty, not the small group that was occupying it now. The main hall was large and open, holding the majority of the moving crates, holding furniture and basic supplies. Most of everything had to be assembled because it was shipped in from King’s Grove.

While the main hall took up the majority of the floor, there were four other rooms worth noting. To the left of the front door was an office space, already containing a massive wooden desk that seemed to be built into the floor itself. To the right of the front door was a larger room with several windows that nearly reached the roof. It was entirely empty, but Andromeda planned on setting it up as a lounge.

On the far left side was another larger room that had a door leading outside. There were weapon racks built into the wall, and the path outside lead to a plain dirt yard. They didn’t really have a need for a training room, so she was going to turn it into a rec room. On the far right side of the room, there was a door that lead to the stairway up to the next floor, and another stairway down into the basement. Not a whole lot of use for that room, but it did have a nice large window, so the idea was to put some plants in there.

The final room on the ground floor was the conference room, it was behind the main hall with

this room also had a massive table built built into the floor. She wasn’t sure how many meetings they would be having, but considering the situation she considered getting some chairs.

Up and downstairs wasn’t as interesting, the second floor was just a bunch of empty bedrooms. If she had anyone over for any reason it would be a good idea to have some spare beds instead of throwing a cot down in the main hall. One interesting fact about the second floor is that the area overhanging the main hall isn’t filled in, so someone can look over the banister and see down to the ground floor. The basement was empty, and they’d use it for storage when they had a need to.

Alice and Andromeda split off, Alice grabbing a crowbar and getting to work taking a crate apart, while Andromeda started unstacking chairs from a pile near the back wall. While Andromeda pulled the chairs down, she watched Alice crack each side of the crate manually. Getting through two crates before Andromeda thought to say something.

“Hey Alice, can’t you use Divination to move things? Why are you pulling things apart like that?” She asked, Alice stopped for a moment. Just long enough that Andromeda knew Alice really heard her, but then she continued pulling the boxes apart.

“It’s fine, I just have a headache, I didn’t want to stress myself.” Alice said. Breaking another box down and piling all the pieces together.

“If you want to go lay down in the tent for a bit, that’s fine. I can get this done myself.” Andromeda said.

Alice didn’t respond right away, but before she did, she took a deep breath. “No, that’s fine. I just need to be careful.” She said. Even though she said it, there was something about the way she said careful that concerned Andromeda.

“Alice, you know you can tell me if something is bothering you, right?” Andromeda said.

Alice stopped again, and put the crowbar down on a nearby crate and wiped her forehead with her sleeve. “So… Do you remember back when we were fighting in Betel? When I was dealing with that man Helping The Arbiter?” Alice said.

“Yeah? What about it?” Andromeda questioned.

“All the things I did, I don’t know… Something was wrong…” Alice said. Andromeda could tell this wasn’t just an idle thought and walked over to Alice.

“How so?” Andromeda asked.

Alice pointed her hand toward the crowbar and her hand shook ever so slightly, the crowbar then flew to her hand. “Using Divination to lift something is hard, and complicated. Especially moving something slowly.” Alice started. She dropped the crowbar and Andromeda watched as it fell quickly to the ground, but stopped short of the floor. A moment later it returned back to her hand like it was attached to a rubber cord.

“What I was doing that day, it was too much. I was tearing the building apart, and keeping it all up in the air while running around and blocking balls of fire. I shouldn’t be able to do that. Even if I was more experienced with Divinatikinetic Telekinesis. It shouldn’t be possible.” Alice said.

“But isn’t that a good thing? It means you’re better then you thought.” Andromeda said.

“No… That’s not what I mean. I mean, imagine if you woke up tomorrow and grew a third arm. Technically you’re better off then you were the night before. But you don’t know where it came from, or why.” Alice said. Andromeda nodded, seeing her point.

“Right… So, is this something you should worry about?” Andromeda asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m kind of scared what it could mean. That, and I’m afraid of what I might do.” Alice said, this part Andromeda could see without being told. On their way out of Entai’s estate after The Arbiter was arrested, she saw what happened to Aixen. His arms and legs were shattered. Not just a few broken bones, but his bones had very nearly turned to dust. It was so bad that she did him the favor of healing some of his injuries, just so he would stop screaming in pain. Alice had done that, and at the time the best answer she could give for injuring him so horribly was that she didn’t know.

“That’s fair, if it helps at all. I trust you enough to do what’s right. I don’t think you would hurt someone without a good reason.” Andromeda said. Alice smiled and stuck the crowbar into a nearby crate.

"It does, I’ll do my best to not disappoint.” Alice said, cracking the crate open with one motion.