“The fey are helping the demons.” Fufi crossed her wings solemnly. “This is not good.”

  “I’m worried.” Alex’s voice sounded troubled. “Not only are Merumeru and Ariel missing, what about the people in town. Are the nymphs that were keeping peace there just going to let the demons march right in and capture everyone? Or worse, help the demons. I’m not sure how the winter court thing Ki was talking about works.”

  “I’m not exactly sure either.” Fufi looked outside the grotto. “The mainstream gods don’t like dealing with them because they tend to be very unpredictable and don’t really fit quite right with the residents of this pne.”

  Alex started to question her assumptions about how their power worked. The simplest expnation would be that the winter court was active on the other side of the pnet. But did this pnet even have seasons that worked the same way as earth? If they had winter all at the same time then how would that work? The nymphs were still here right? They were just sleeping in their trees, but not all of them. Were some nymphs part of both courts? Was Sakura part of the summer court? Is it safe to assume she’s still in her grove resting until spring arrives?

  “Ugh, this is going to give me a headache thinking about.” Alex held a hand to her head. “We should just head to town and see how we can help. Will you be okay here Bob and Martha? You two can come stay at my pce until this all gets sorted.”

  “We’ll be fine dear.” Matha pointed at the statue of Luna. “If any more demons come back then we can be proud of the fact that the stupid ones were baited by us to face judgement for vioting Luna’s shrine. Being a non combat css, we generally don’t get a chance to be part of big conflicts directly.”

  “That’s very brave of you two.” Alex felt impressed by the elderly couple’s resolve. “If you change your mind, just get changed and make your way safely to the portal pipe.”

  “Enough about us.” Bob countered. “What are your pns?”

  “I’ve got to check on town and see if there is anything we can do to help.” Alex held up her three dolls. “Also, is Kaide’s tree okay?”

  “Yes, st we checked.” Bob nodded. “She’s not in an easy pce to find and if like you said all the animals are okay I doubt they did anything to the forest.”

  “Okay.” Alex waved and headed out. “We’ll be back soon.”

  She headed out of the raveen where the grotto was and back up the steps to the farm. After passing the structure she went back to the chicken-guarded fortification and hopped into the portal pipe going to town.

  When she popped out into the guild’s basement, luckily the pce wasn’t a battlefield or covered in ice.

  Alex walked up the stairs, Fufi in tow. “Hello?”

  Fufi peeked around the main lobby of the adventurer’s guild. “Is anyone here?”

  There was some noise coming from the kitchen back behind the counter. “OH! Is someone there? I thought everyone was loading up the boats.”

  “People are loading up boats?” Alex puzzled at the odd sentence. “I think I missed something important.”

  “Didn’t you hear?” The woman sounded a bit shocked at Alex’s ignorance. “Cecil said that we should start loading up the boats and get ready to head downstream.”

  “Downstream?” Alex gaped, confused. “But the capital is that way. How are they going to sneak far enough to avoid the demons.”

  “Not sure.” She shook her head. “Just that when the cold dy came and said that we have been terrible guests and we need to go, that was the only pn that we could come up with on such short notice.”

  Alex wanted to argue more saying that heading back would be even worse than facing the winter court and the ice cn. But she wasn’t sure. Instead she politely parted ways and headed to the docks.

  And the docks were busting. A touch of snow was in the air but people were staging supplies right next to the river. There wasn’t much in the way of a pier so people with high stats were doing all sorts of chaotic things to get supplies on the multitude of small boats. And most of the boats were simir to the shallow dingy type that Alex made. They were not something that could take very safely out in anything but calm waters. A couple more adventurous people had made their own bigger boats, but the longest one looked to be somewhere between 20 and 30 feet.

  They still had the big river barge though that could carry a bunch of cargo if they didn’t fill it with people. Some of the smaller sail boats could only carry a single person, or two if one of them was a child. The longer ones, she guessed 5 or six.

  Alex did some quick math in her head, trying to see if they actually could evacuate the down with the boats that lined the edge of the river. If there were a thousand people to evacuate then she wasn’t quite sure there were enough spots.

  “Hey Cecil.” Alex spotted the guild master from Yvne’s barony. “What’s going on?”

  “It should be obvious.” The man stopped what he was doing and straighted up when he saw the plumbing-outfit-wearing magical girl. “Alex, pleasure to see you. Ah, um, to answer your question, we are preparing to leave as instructed.”

  “Can you even do it?” Alex worried. “It took several trips to get everyone up stream to here from Yvne’s barony and are there not even more people from people in the wastends joining us? It has got to be over a thousand now.”

  Cecil shook his head. “No, it is around 700. We got a spike for a while, but the nomadic tribes didn’t py well together. Some of them just up and left. You yourself led a couple families to resettle, so there is a sizable group gone with just that.”

  “But everyone is just going to uproot and leave.” Alex sounded shocked. “Just like that?”

  “Ki warned us that something like that might happen.” Cecil stated with conviction. “So we spent the time we had preparing.”

  “It is just sad is all.” Alex felt emotional. “You lose what little security you have from being part of a kingdom, yeah it is a corrupt demon-controlled kingdom and only a few months ter things fall apart again. Where are you even pnning on going?”

  “Ariel and Aqua said there is a small isnd chain not too far from the bar. It used to have fresh water before demons bsted them. Ships used to harbor there before going to the Jass capital. But some combination of csses could turn it into a farmstead. If nothing else, we can winter in the harbor and use the snow for fresh water.” The veteran said.

  “How far out in the ocean is it?” Fufi sounded concerned. “If you go out too far you might miss it and end up lost.”

  “I’m not quite sure.” Cecil didn’t sound happy about this. “Ariel said that she and Merumeru were looking to clear a way through the bar. It has a lot of shipwrecks that make it dangerous to get out to the open sea.”

  “So that is where that slimegirl went.” Alex looked ponderous. “To be honest, I was so focused that I didn’t notice when she stopped showing up. I suppose Ariel too.”

  “You were very focused.” Fufi confirmed. “But that flying toy boat you made is amazing.”

  “So you were making boats too?” Cecil raised an eyebrow.

  “Haha,” Alex said sheepishly. “I suppose I was.” She looked around. “I don’t see the air boat.”

  “Same story.” Cecil looked down the river. “Ariel and Merumeru had been using it. They said that it works really well in the swamp, and even on the ice in a few pces. I suppose they were patrolling the borders looking for demons.”

  “I think I see what was happening.” Fufi nodded her beak. “Ariel is trying to get some levels.”

  “Levels?” Alex drew a bnk for a moment.

  “You know, magical girls have to defeat monsters.” Fufi used her teaching voice.

  “Duh,” Alex had apparently been neglecting to level too. “I suppose there might be monsters in the swamp.”

  “Monsters are becoming increasingly difficult to find.” Fufi further expined. “About the only way for most combat cssers to level is to fight demons.”

  “I hope they were careful.” Alex got a bad premonition. “Demons tend to have rge groups.”

  “You can ask around but I’m not sure who all has much information.” Cecil also started to sound a bit worried. “They usually don’t go out more than a few days at a time.”

  Fufi flew around, watching things while Alex annoyed some of the people trying to pack with questions about the whereabouts of a sea elf and a slime girl.

  Time passed, and ter on in the evening Fufi noticed a familiar tiny sub surface from the river.

  “Merumeru!” Fufi flew down and perched on the sub.

  The gss hatch popped out and a little slime girl popped out. And what looked like some kind of white flying object popped out with her.

  “Ack! What kind of creature is that in the cockpit with you!” Alex rushed to the shore.

  “Meru!” Merumeru did a pose on the deck of her sub.

  A high-pitched squeaky voice came from the direction of the flying object. “Rude! Don’t you recognize me?”

  “Who?” Fufi regarded the palm-sized white blur darting around. “How can we recognize you if you don’t hold still long enough to get a good look at you.”

  The glowing white thing nded on Merumeru’s head and stood still long enough so that they could get a good look at it.

  “An ice fairy?” Fufi recoiled. “What are you doing with Merumeru? It is bad enough that the winter court wants us gone.”

  “Double rude!” The fairy gave Fufi a look.

  Another fmingo swooped down and nded in the water. “Hello cousin.”

  “Funi?” Now Fufi looked really confused. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with Ariel?”

  The fairy cackled.

  “Yeah.” Funi looked to the tiny fairy. “About that.”

  Alex, being extra perspective today. “Ariel, did you get turned into a fairy?”

  “Yeah.” The fair squeaked. “We got caught.”

  “What happened?” Alex asked.

  “We were taking the air boat and then found some sneaky imps trying to make their way into the forest. Apparently, the word is that the ice cn found a new group of humans trying to start a town. So they were moving to attack the town. The winter court was helping them for whatever reason.” The fairy spoke quickly. “So, after defeating the offenders, Merumeru and I found a river much farther to the north, went up there to investigate and what we thought might be a few hundred demons turned out to be thousands. Long story short, the demons caught us, and were disappointed that we were not humans. So they were going to kill us.”

  “MERU!!!” Merumeru sounded distressed at that part.

  “So the Yuki onna who was with them said that she liked games. She said that if we could get out of the forest then they’d let us go back to what we were.” Ariel said.

  “What happened.” Alex looked at Merumeru, who wasn’t a fairy. “Merumeru did you get turned into a fairy too?”

  Merumeru shook her head. “Ruuu.”

  “What she means is that she avoided them.” Ariel jumped up and down. “I stupidly didn’t want to fight the demons and agreed to the deal. But as soon as Merumeru spoke, she told the Yuki Onna she didn’t want to py.”

  “Wouldn’t that just make her mad?” Fufi looked at the pair that just got back.

  “No.” Ariel shook her head. “The demons couldn’t understand her, so after I got turned into a fairy, Merumeru grabbed me and jumped away. The Yuki Onna shot a ray of frost at her, but I think she missed on purpose.”

  “Why are the fey so hard to understand.” Alex shook her head. “They want us gone, they help the demons, then they go easy when they don’t have to. Also, why are you not back to normal? This is out of the forest right? Making it to river counts?”

  Ariel shook her little head. “I’m not sure. Maybe the deal is that someone that wins the game will turn back, but looking back they didn’t actually say when.”

  “So you have no idea how long you’ll be a fairy?” Alex furrowed her brows.

  “That is about right.” Ariel looked a little nervous. “Anyway, how did your toy boat project go.”

  Alex perked up at that. “Let me show it to you.”

  She summoned the carriage at a ft, slightly down sloping area by the river so that it could be backed into the water. “What do you think?”

  Ariel flew off Merumeru and stood behind the helm. “Oooo, this is a really nice ship.”

  Alex couldn’t help but think that her new size fit very well with the doll crew that ran the ship.