Where It All Began

The next few days were spent hiding in the wilderness. With only two horses, there wasn't much space for each rider. Jacki rode with Aayla while Chris rode with Daren. Lesser-known trails and roads were their only options.

They took a winding route that zig zagged through the forest to avoid notice. Chris would use magic to scout ahead. Any villages were avoided, as were the main roads. Most of the villages were abandoned closer to Nafriton, but the team didn't want to take any chances.

As they neared the old campus, their travel became slower and slower. Patrols had increased, so the team had to be more cautious. The number of patrols was less than expected, but more than they hoped. The True Order still placed more focus on Nafriton than they thought.

Fortunately, they didn't need to get onto campus. They only needed to find a specific spot in the forest northeast of it. Daren guided them through the forest in the general direction of their destination. When they arrived, only a sea of trees greeted them.

After hiding the horses and their camp, the team spent the next few days searching for the fairy ring. Aayla didn't recognize any of this part of the forest. Fortunately, they were deep in a wooded area far away from the nearest trails. The patrols weren't too interested in monitoring out this area.

The days seemed to pass by in an agonizing eternity. The fairy ring was nowhere to be found. Yet each day brought another chance of being discovered by the True Order. Fate seemed to be annoyed with the delay, so a hint conveniently grabbed on to Aayla's feet.

Literally. One day, Aayla walked through a new section of forest with Jacki. The sun began to set on the horizon, yet they had found nothing. Frustrated, Aayla ran back along the trail towards camp when she suddenly fell face first into the ground.

Fortunately, Aayla landed on a bush. She groaned as she pushed herself off of the ground. Aayla dusted off her knees and pulled leaves out of her hair. When Aayla looked at her foot, she found a torn-up root wrapped around her ankle. It tingled with pain. At the very least something was sprained.

Jacki quickly arrived after hearing Aayla's yelp.

"Aayla, what happened?"

"I was running and my foot got caught in a root."

A hand suddenly smacked her on the head.

"Ouch! Jacki, what was that for?"

"You being an idiot. What are you running for in a forest this dense and rocky? Your lucky that this only looks like a mild sprain. Wait, what is that behind you?"

Visibly stunned with wide eyes, Jacki pointed behind Aayla. When Aayla turned around, her eyes also went wide. The bush that she fell on was mostly flattened. A wide clearing was revealed behind it. Stones arranged in a circular pattern was visible through the hole in the foliage.

"This is it! This should be the place."

Aayla beamed. She barely recognized this place. This was where she first arrived on Tellus. Jacki pulled Aayla along as they ran back to camp. They had to tell the others as soon as possible.

**********

"This is the hypothetical fairy ring. Daren, what do you think?"

Daren excitedly jumped from stone to stone. He carefully looked over the faint runes on each one and squealed with glee each time he found a new one that he'd never seen before. Jacki looked at Chris and nodded her chin towards Daren as if to ask 'Should we do something about this?'.

"He'll be fine once he calms down. This should be a fairy ring judging by the young master's reaction. Just give him an hour to let his excitement die a bit then we can get to work. Could I trouble you two ladies to pack up the camp? We should move it to a secluded location closer by."

Aayla hobbled behind Jacki back to camp. Her foot was bandaged, but none of the team was good at healing magic so she would have to recover naturally. Aayla took down the tents and got the horses ready, but Jacki did everything else.

When the horses started down the trail, Jacki cast a spell. The plants grew wildly over their former campsite. Soon, it appeared as if nothing had been there minutes before. The spell continued to cover their tracks as the horses pushed through the foliage.

Daren had calmed down by the time the Jacki and Aayla got back. An excited glint still flickered in his eyes, but Daren could talk coherently and wasn't running around like a toddler on caffeine. He burned all of his previous designs and started fresh.

Chris waved and guided the horses to a new spot several feet way from the fairy ring. Chris had already set up the walls for a new campsite. The new trail between the fairy ring and new campsite was carefully concealed in the foliage.

Setting up the new campsite barely took ten minutes. Jacki eagerly wanted to get a better look at the fairy ring so she skipped a few tasks. As the second to discover it, she had barely gotten to see it. Unfortunately, the sun had fell below the horizon. Any exploration would have to wait until the next day.

An unwilling Daren was forced back to the campsite by Chris. The young master sulked as dinner was prepared. Getting pulled away from his latest obsession made him very upset and childish. Chris nudged him to talk.

"The fairy ring isn't going anywhere. Why don't you tell Jacki what you've found so far? She hasn't had a good chance to really look at it yet."

"Hmph. Well, it's definitely a fairy ring. A very, very old one. Even older than the one near Halcyon but not as well maintained. This one has several issues which will take a very long time and extremely rare materials to fix. Honestly, we'll need specialists to get it fully operational."

"Is there nothing that we can do?"

"Well, I can probably get it partially fixed. The range and mana regulation will be extremely poor, though."

The others tensed. Does this mean that the fairy ring will be useless even if they fix it? Daren casually continued on with his analysis.

"We should still get past the border of Barvas province after the fixes. I'd like to run a few tests first, but the True Order would notice immediately halfway through the activation sequence if they're any good. I would bet that those currently watching Nafriton are definitely that good."

Barvas province was the main southern neighbor of Saintlenee province, and Cuoq City was located just south of the Barvas-Saintlenee border. The Havrevel River officially ended and split into smaller rivers after the border.

Aayla, Jacki and Chris sighed in relief. Why didn't he say that part quicker?! For a moment they worried that all of their farfetched plans would collapse.

"What do you need to fix it? Do we have everything that you need?"

"Oh, no. Not by a longshot. But I have enough to get it barely operational to reach Barvas if I use Headmaster Marin and Deputy Heston's materials."

Eh? Aayla thought that she heard something strange and dangerous. Ramona was strict about who could access her lab and office. Chris and Daren shouldn't be on that list.

"Headmaster Marin's belongings I understand, by why do you have my godmother's things?"

"During the evacuation, Chris went looking for information about –"

"The faculty randomly gave research and rare magical materials to students and staff when we fled Forest Waypoint. Daren got the headmaster's things, and I received Deputy Heston's. They most likely felt that since the Forolan family took responsibility to protect Ramona Heston's goddaughter, that a Forolan should protect Deputy Heston's things.

"Daren already has the headmaster's but you are… not as magically skilled as me, Miss Glowery. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you earlier, but I was worried that this matter would upset you."

Chris quickly cut off his young master before he said something stupid. When Daren gets obsessed with something, his filters go off and his common sense disappears. Aayla could not find out that they basically looted Deputy Heston's office and all Terran related tomes during the Nafriton evacuation.

Honestly, Chris had put the matter in the back of his mind. Since Grandfather Forolan had basically ignored the issue, Chris had kept Deputy Heston's things since the Nafriton evacuation. Aayla could easily think that he or the Forolans intended to steal them.

Daren shut his mouth when he felt the vice-like grip on his shoulder. His survival instincts didn't completely go off line. Sure enough, Aayla was suspicious but let the matter drop for now.

"Fine. Since it's to fix the fairy ring, I don't think that Deputy Heston will have any complaints. Let's just get it fixed as best as we can before the True Order catches on. How long will it take?"