The ride to Kurayo was long, but it was an overdue visit for the Desdemonas to see their benefactors. Things were improving with his wife, though it wasn't to say that she was hundred percent. There were still some nights he’d worry about her but in general, she was starting to be more like the woman he had married and then fell in love with. Ryker had been instructed by Edrahil to pay their respects and also to get Lora out and about from their house and into someplace new. In truth, this would be a new experience for the both of them; for they have never really strayed too far from Jayou, much less travel nearly halfway across the world.

The airship that carried them was especially something he had never done before. What would have taken regular ships months to do, this vessel made the trek in a matter of weeks. Upon their arrival, a carriage had been ready for them; the news of their visit was sent prior and the arrangements by the Volkovs were prepared. “Seems like they think at least three steps ahead, always”, he mused as they got off the ship and helped her into the carriage. With the head of the house being a cunning businessman and his wife an esteemed practitioner, he wondered what the rest of their family was like. The werepanther shuttered to think of it and got inside himself. The carriage rode off and he watched as they traveled through the rough streets of the port and lower districts, through the high streets, and then to the countryside. It would be another hour or two before they’d arrive and he turned his attention to Loralei.

“How are you faring? This has to be as weird for you as it is for me.” They had a few men who came with them, but they were to wait a while before regrouping with them to avoid any suspicion. For most, the couple would seem ordinary, at least among the creme de la creme.

When the carriage came to a halt, he spotted the family's right-hand man waiting for them. “Lord and Lady Desdemona, welcome.” Maalik bowed to them once they were out and Ryker did the same back. “Same to you, Maalik. We were excited to be coming here to pay our respects to the Masters of the house.

“The honor is ours, come this way.”

The three ventured inside and Maalik was about to leave them to fetch Nemesis when he stopped abruptly and sighed hard. “Please, if you will, no sudden movements and I promise everything’s going to be alright. We are about to have company…”

Ryker looked at him cock-eyed before turning to his wife. “Uh, what do you mean?”

“You will see…unfortunately…”

Lora was excited about the airship. Sure, she still had her moments but the doctor had told her that it would be normal. It was alright to grieve for her lost child. Giving Ryker a smile she watched the water below them. Even from this high it was amazing to her.

Once they were the carriage she looked at the land of no sun. It was certainly odd but then again they lived underground in Jayou so no sun was rather normal for them. “It’s weird but not unpleasant,” Lora’s bi-colored eyes looked at him and she gave him a small smile.

Lora bowed to Maliik and smiled, “Thank you.”

The house was splendid with a lot of love and care. Someone had obviously had a lot of effort in designing it from the ground up.

The portal from Elysia opened as soon as Maliik warned them. “MAALIIIK,” Raine came bolting through the portal. She was wearing a cute little sundress, no shoes, and her hair was wild to her waist. “TROUBBLEEEEEEE!” She was flailing her arms and she stopped mid-step, mid flail, and her eyes were glued to Loralei and Ryker.

“OH HI! NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN!” She started to flail her arms again. “MALIIK IT'S TERRIBLE!” There was screaming from the portal. “THOSE PEOPLE IN MAMLAK HAVE REALLY DONE IT NOW! Lady Angela is going to string them up!”

Tamara came through the portal with her blanket. There was a blank look on her face. “Too loud.” She was heading for the stairs to go up to her bedroom.

“Princess Tamara! You shouldn’t go up the stairs by yourself!” Raine panicked as she looked at the small toddler.

“Ma loud,” Tamara’s red eyes looked up at Raine. “Room please.”

Loralei pointed her finger at Raine as she started to recognize who she was.

With the thoughts of how majestic those within the Volkovs’ lives must have been still fresh in his mind, Ryker was waiting for Maalik to fetch his master when they were told to not move. Confusion ran across his face until a portal opened up and some sort of wild woman came darting out, screaming like a damn banshee. Who the hell was she and how did she have any relation to this family whatsoever? As he stared in slight disbelief, something was odd. She seemed a tad familiar and what was more disturbing was that she acted like she indeed did know him and Loralei.

Maalik, for the most part, looked at her unamused with his arms folded against himself. His eyes only lifted up for a second while the screaming from the other side of the portal came out before they lowered back towards Raine. “What is going on. Why does it sound like someone’s getting murdered in her realm?”

“Realm?” The hell were they talking about? Things only got stranger as a little child came into the picture. Was she belonging to Lady Angela? The resemble would say so but then what was going on across the other side?

But then as he watched them talk, Ryker noticed Lora’s reaction and got some thoughts of his own. He nonchalantly moved over towards them and took the girl’s hair and placed it on top of her head to resemble it being pinned up. “Oh god, it can’t be…You were the maiden that was with him!?” His confusion only grew and his mouth hung a bit as the well-kept and the polite young woman they met in Jayou was actually some wild woman.

“Yes, this is Raine. They had her pampered to give the guise of a lady of the court. But this is her through and through.” Maalik sighed as he looked towards Tamara yet did nothing because he knew what was going to happen next.

The ruckus had disturbed the master of the house from his work and the footsteps were coming closer to them from the second floor, and then the stairs where he stopped to see his daughter climbing them. “And where do we think we are going?”, the elder said as he scooped up the child into his arms. “Apparently her mother is going on a rampage”, Maalik replied.

Nemesis came down and noticed the Desdemonas. “A pleasure to see you two, though I’d hope under better circumstances.” It couldn’t be helped now. “The faint color you have seems to be coming back to you, child. I see that Angela’s treatments have been working”, he spoke to Lora before looking to Ryker. “If you wish to pay respects, I’ll take you to my wife. Though I can’t say for certain what her mood would be.”

“It’s not a problem. We owe her this much to see her face to face”, he replied, though who knows what they were about to walk into.

Nemesis bounced Tamara up and down, “Papa has to go see Mama and help her, okay.” He handed her over to Maalik. “Take her upstairs and wait a bit. Might need you to get the hound later.”

“Understood.”

With that command, he took the girl up the stairs and Nemesis gestured to Raine to lead the way through the portal. “How bad is it this time, Raine?”, he sighed.

Raine thought of the best way to say what was on her mind, “As you know we are doing a revitalization project in Mamlak with herbs that have died out in the region. This is a passion project for My Lady…. It’s also why she hasn’t been sleeping. Or eating. Or coming out of her office. Much to mine and Xeik’s displeasure.” She held her breath for a moment, “Someone broke into the cathedral greenhouse grounds and tore a lot of the plants up. She is maddddd. Half a year’s worth of work destroyed. We’re still unsure how he got past the magic defenses the clergy put up.”

Raine blinked at Ryker and gave a smile, “They gave me a lot of lessons I’m glad they worked so well!”

Tamara put her arms up as soon as Nemesis saw her and she was in his arms fast. “Bed.”

Loralei was in shock from everything but managed to answer Nemesis, “Yes! My energy has started to return almost in full!”

“Okay,” Tamara kissed Nemesis’s nose and went to Maalik easily.

Raine walked next to Nemesis and beckoned Loralei and Ryker to follow. “Well, she is beyond livid. I haven’t seen her this mad since they uprooted those rare trees in Virens. You remember how much she raged… It took Xeik and Maalik talking her down so you could handle it for us. This time they told her when she had finally gotten some sleep.”

A table went flying once they got to a greenhouse in Elysia. “AAHHHHH!” The goddess was pulling at her red locks. “What am I going to do? Where is that stuff?” She flung some cupboards open. “Raine do you know where the heritage seeds are?”

Raine put her hands together in a clap, “NOPE!”

Angela turned and looked with an angry face but once she saw Nemesis she seemed to snap out of her anger. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Raine nodded. “You went too farrrr~ I had to go get Lord Nemesis~”

The goddess looked radiant but she wasn’t even out of her sleeping clothes. Apparently, she had received the news while she was sleeping… Which would explain why she was so mad.

The woman was buried into her work once more. Hardly surprising for Nemesis to hear from her avatar. Of course, he had always gotten on her about making sure her realm was more guarded- she already had enough enemies, more than he had figured and with her as his wife, he would suspect that even more would be out and about. While the god would have preferred to deal with this situation alone, the Desdemonas were wishing to accompany him since it was Angela that had helped Loralei get this far into her recovery.

But they would see what the goddess was like when she wasn’t putting on a show and it came shortly after their arrival in Elysia. The husband was looking around the place, unsure of what to make of this place and likely wondering who Angela really was. That much Nemesis couldn’t blame them for. The realm was vastly different from any place either of them had ever seen, he’d imagine. Sadly, there was no time for a tour and they were lead to where the goddess was throwing a huge fit. Ryker had remembered the redhead as being posed, level-headed and radiant- she was only the latter in this case as he looked around her and saw nearly every damn thing flipped or busted. He held onto Lora’s hand tightly and stood slightly in front of her as if to shield her in case anything else went a-flying.

Nemesis spoke nothing until she was made aware of his presence and soon her temper dropped. “Aside from your possessions, and a rather cranky toddler that looks like you, nothing seems too damaged in your fit.” He came over to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Now what are you looking for and why?”

Something, something, seeds were all he knew. He usually wouldn’t get involved with her work, but since this was a dire situation, he’d at least offer a hand. Once everything died down, Ryker noticed immediately that she wasn’t dressed properly and covered his eyes. “Forgive us for disturbing you in…your time of need.”

“Oh…yes. The Desdemonas came to see and thank us accordingly. To thank you in particular for your help with the Lady.”

Angela’s face flushed a bit as she looked at the Desdemonas and facepalmed a bit. “Heritage seeds. I had a sack of them just in case something went wrong with the project. These were seeds that have been handed down by generations of people. Stored in the pyramids that appeared in the desert long before we started to court. They are older than you are.”

Angela waved her hand at Ryker and Lorelai, “It’s fine, I get… agitated when I get woken up. I panicked more than usual.”

Raine let out a shy but Angela pointed at her, “WHY DON’T YOU KNOW WHERE THEY ARE?!”

Raine jumped and did a little dance, “Because you didn’t assign this room to me to clean. YOU ASSIGNED XEIK!”

Xeik came in behind Loralei and Ryker, “Pardon me. I tried to stop them… I told them waking her up was a bad idea. My needy lazy goddess~” He smirked a bit and Angela slapped him upside the head. “Fine, you don’t want these?” He held up the little pouch and Angela swiped them. “I put them in a safe place so no one could get a hold of them.”

“You are a life saver my little Divine Mender~ I’ll forgive you for calling me lazy!” Angela was happy to see the seeds.

“You are also a pervert~” Xeik smirked and Angela smacked him again without looking. Xeik looked exhausted, overworked, and just drained from the events of the greenhouse.

“We still don’t know who broke into the cathedral,” Raine frowned. “We worked so hard on it!”

“It would take someone skilled in holy magic to break through it… The price of the herbs that we planted is high right now,” Angela frowned a bit. “The greed of mortals never fails somewhere.” She sighed a bit. “These are the last ones until we can get them to flower and take the seeds.” Looking up at Loralei she offered a smile, “You look so much better now. I am very honored to have been able to help you both.”

“Thank you…” Loralei couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Who was this woman? “Are these herbs rare?”

“Very much so! There’s a wide variety of them now but these… are about as close to the original as possible. They are valuable for their medicinal properties in healing and making mana potions. There were a few found in Itjivut a while back but these seeds we plundered from the pyramids in the Herana.”

Raine put up her hand, “Lady Angela. If they damaged the roots couldn’t you just regrow the plant? It’s still the original plant.”

Angela’s eyes lit up a bit, “I might yes… We could try that.”

Who the devil was this woman?

The wife of a family business partner and a "Great Healer of Parvpora", supposedly. Aside from that, Ryker hadn’t the foggiest clue on what she truly was. He doubted the Head of his family did either and surely Lora knew as much as he did right now. To be truthful, he wasn’t sure of what to make of Nemesis either; at least on a personal level. And with each new thing unfolding about the Volkovs, small suspicions were growing ever so stronger in him. Meanwhile, Nemesis had to stop himself from nearly rolling his eyes. “Seeds…you nearly destroyed your greenhouse for…” He sighed and rubbed at his temples as he took it in stride and thought about the significance of the seeds. “Okay then, so how does one lose such things when they are that valuable?” Knowing Angela, it could have been simply placed somewhere as she mindlessly worked on something.

As quickly as her poise came back, it vanished rather quickly, and only when another one of her people came into the scene and gave her the seeds did it only raise more questions in Ryker. “Goddess? The hell are you talking about?” His temper was starting to surface, showing the werepanther within. All this mystery was getting on his nerves. Apparently, Nemesis noticed it as well. “Young and hotblooded. I can’t remember when I was either, it was so long ago.”

“Calm down, boy. She’s a goddess and I’m a god.”

The werepanther was hardly convinced, which wasn’t too surprising. “Parvpora is a place devoid of such things, I’m aware. But I speak the truth here, Ryker. Her abilities go beyond that of mortals’ imaginations.” His eyes glanced over to Loralei, “How else did you explain your wife’s recovery? The woman’s good at her job, and that’s why she governs in the art of Life.”

The skepticism from him didn’t waver as Nemesis had hoped. “And you say that you are a god too? Are you guys nuts?” Throwing his hands up, Ryker paced around as if he was a cat, trying to calm down but this wasn’t making any sort of sense.

“Regardless…You think it was someone that snuck here that did the damage?”, he spoke, turning the conversation back to his wife and Raine’s conversation. “In that case, I could always bring the ‘bloodhound’ in…” He wasted little time in calling for Maalik to bring him in. A short time later, Maalik came, dragging an annoyed Ivan with him. “He’s upset that he can’t find Ayla anywhere.”

“Yeah, she’s been gone for two weeks, and I’m soooooooo borrrrrrrrred!”, he whined pathetically.