[Greyson – 10 years]

"Greysooooooon," Cody complains as I change.

As usual, I've woken at five to do my morning fitness routine before school. I always do my best to not wake Cody and even use magic to remain silent. Magic ensures I don't need to use light, though a modified form of echolocation is a bit strange to me.

Even after more than a month of using it.

Somehow, I woke him up. Was the sound imperceptible to human hearing somehow able to wake Cody? I have to use my echolocation spell to even detect it.

"Sorry," I whisper. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"I was already awake," he grumbles. "Why do you always getup so early to train? You've already got a six-pack."

Oh. Suppressing my empathy at night so that I can sleep more easily with all of the mind around prevented me from knowing that. If I'd known he was already awake, I would've offered to use a spell to help him fall back asleep already.

"It keeps me fit and healthy," I whisper back. "And ensures I maintain my martial arts skills. Having a six-pack when it's insanely difficult to do at my age also acts as an easy-to-prove flex over any kids who would like to bully me over being different. If you'd like, I can use a spell to help you fall back asleep?"

"No," Cody groans. "I'll join you today, just… gimme a sec to get dressed."

Cody gets out of bed and conjures a small orb of soft light to see by as he changes into sweats and a hoodie. Once he's got his shoes on, we head to the training center, and change in one of the locker rooms there into shorts and sleeveless shirts.

We both do a warm-up run with some bodyweight exercises to help us warm up and stretch our bodies, though what we do for them is different. Cody's body isn't as trained as mine so he has a lighter warm-up than I do.

After we finish our warm-ups, we move to the jungle gym. It's not really a jungle gym, but it might as well be because it has monkey bars and various climbing walls and setups.

There aren't any ropes for us to attach to for the climbing walls, but that's because there's cushioning magic at the bases. If we fall, we won't break anything unless we're deliberately trying to. The system also detects if anything fails and blocks off the whole unit where the failure is to avoid accidents.

There are zero incidents where it's failed to the point of an accident in the academy's records. Sadly, finding that out has led me to having to spend half an hour after school for two weeks helping kids with difficulties swimming strengthen their swim techniques.

Next time, I'll do a better job at not getting caught. At least this is the last week for that.

One of the features of the jungle gym area is that we can put on vests which affect gravity on the wearer and only the wearer. This allows people to customize their training a little, but only the staff are allowed to adjust the gravity influence of the vests. That's probably to avoid students hurting themselves with the vests.

After my vest's setting is adjusted, I go across the monkey bars four times, then climb up a rope before jumping down into a pit of foam blocks. There are two ways out of the pit, and I choose to use the climbing wall rather than just pulling myself up onto the ground outside. From the top of this climbing wall, I can descend either down another climbing wall, a ladder, a set of steps, or by jumping into another foam pit.

I choose to do the latter because it feels fun to have my body sink down super fast and send the foam blocks flying.

I run this route four times, then run the nearby obstacle course four times. All of this takes about an hour and fifteen minutes, so I stop here. One of the staff members supervising disables my vest and I hang it back up, then walk over to Cody, who's plopped himself onto the floor.

He's panting heavily and his clothes are soaked with sweat. Even though his vest setting was a lot lighter than mine, he pushed himself a lot more than he usually does in our fitness class.

"If you do this just three times a week," I tell him. "Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you'll get a lot better at it and be able to handle more without wearing out."

"Don't wanna," he flips himself onto his back. "Ugh. How do you do this five times a week?"

"I don't," I tell him. "Tuesdays and Thursdays are a different workout. Come on, let's go shower and change, then we can head to the cafeteria and get something to eat. I heard a rumor they're doing cinnamon rolls today!"

Cody groans again but gets up, and we head to the changing rooms to undress before our shower. Once we've scrubbed off the sweat and dressed, we head back to our dorm building to grab our bags for class, then head to the main cafeteria for breakfast. Finn joins us along the way, as I texted him to let him know to join us while we were heading back from the fitness center.

Just as I'd heard, there are cinnamon rolls today! They never tell anyone when there will be cinnamon rolls just to keep it a surprise for us. There are a few different foods they do that for and it was worth promising to bake someone fifty cupcakes in exchange for finding out when the next cinnamon roll day was.

Not from there being a limited amount or anything, but because it means we can beat the lines once word spreads that it's cinnamon roll day. It's always worth beating the lines.

One of the amazing things about this place is that we're allowed to have up to four entrees when we go through the line. It's not as many as it would be if I made the cinnamon rolls myself, but they're still filling as they're made with authentic magic ingredients. They're also a lot larger than the cinnamon rolls I make myself.

"Extra icing, please!" I say, and the breakfast lady puts more icing onto my cinnamon rolls. "Thanks!"

The cafeteria workers here are so much nicer than at public school. I'd never get extra icing if I asked back at Lakeview. And they definitely wouldn't let me get ten sausage patties and ten sausage links there, too. Just the only two they allow for a breakfast side, when those are available. Being able to have five different sides would never have been allowed there, either.

Making friends, learning stuff public school couldn't teach me, a proper fitness facility, better tech, and much nicer cafeteria staff. I'm glad Grandfather Adrian suggested I attend this academy rather than public school.

Even if the anti-teleport ward still bothers me. At least I can get through it if needed.

"Hey, Greyson?" Finn asks as we sit down. "Is there a reason you coated everything in syrup today?"

"Extra sugar to get me through the Monday!"

"He fell while-mph!" Cody suddenly stops talking due to my hand covering his mouth.

There's no way I'm letting him tell Finn that I lost my grip while climbing a rope during the morning fitness session.

"I did not-ew!"

Cody licked my hand while I was talking, which is gross!

"On the rope!" Cody exclaims. "He fell-oi! Don't put your syrupy spoon in my face!"

[Sig – 13 years]

"Hi, Sig," Xander says when I open the door, and he gives me a hug. "Are you ready?"

"Yup!" I answer.

"Okay," he says. "Let's go."

I step out of the house and close and lock the door. Xander walks me down to the curb, then lets us know he's teleporting us. A moment later, we're at the gate to his house.

One day, I'll figure out why he doesn't just teleport us inside and why he always goes to the street. Today is not that day.

At least it's warmed up a little and isn't too cold now. The snow's melted some yesterday and will probably melt more today. Chances are good it'll be completely gone by the end of Thursday.

"Hey, Xander?" I ask as we walk through the hall leading into his fitness center.

"Yes, Sig?"

"How come the snowmen don't look melted?"

Some of the snowmen from Saturday's competition are within view from the windows here and they all look just as good as they did then. They all also have scarves, gloves, and snowman-head-sized beanies, none of which they had when we left on Saturday.

"Puffy used his magic to preserve them."

"Who's Puffy?" I ask.

"The blizzard wolf," he answers. "He really liked the snowmen and used his magic to make sure they won't melt for now."

That's a weird name for such a dangerous-sounding creature, but I'm going to guess it's one of those cases where Xander's attempted to translate it into Zrebzialan.

"Ah," I say. "Is it swimming like normal today?"

"For the fitness session?" He asks. "It should still be swimming, yeah."

"Cool!"

We reach the rec center and head to the changing rooms and prepare for swim lessons. Today, Xander's wearing his full-body swimsuit under his swim trunks, which is just weird. He did the same the Monday after his birthday party, too. I can't remember him ever wearing the full-body swimsuit any other time, but he's had the trunks as well both times I've seen so he probably does it every time.

Why not wear just the full-body swimsuit if he's going to wear it? There's no reason to wear the trunks, too.

Today's swim session consists of some warm-ups, then laps. That's followed by Coach Adam having us try to catch balls he throws, then having us chase down water torpedoes. It's as exhausting as fitness sessions with him always is.

If I try to stop to catch my breath, I start falling behind. Xander goes for the next torpedo or ball without complaint the moment Coach Adam says to, so I push through. I can't compete with Xander since he's significantly stronger than me and doesn't use a strength-dampening bracelet for this. To make up for that, I do my best to beat my scores from previous swim sessions.

Not that I do too much better, but I'm definitely improving. I even manage to beat my best score for torpedo count in three minutes today! Only by one torpedo, but I manage it!

Even after two months of this, it feels like the amount of stamina I've gained from this just isn't enough. How Xander manages to push through without an immediate nap after is beyond me.

Rather than what he normally does when we shower after, Xander switches to wolfkin form before washing up.

"Wolfkin?" I ask. "Doing your morning class as that now?"

"No," Xander answers. "I ain't doing it today. I'm gonna take a nap after the smoothie and just figured I'd shift now instead of later."

"Alright," I say. "How do you have enough stamina to handle Coach Adam's lessons? It feels like I never have enough, and I already started with plenty. And I've built up a decent amount these past two months, too?"

"Can we not talk in the shower, please?"

Right, he's probably already uncomfortable. And he prefers looking at least near the person he's talking with, even if I'm fine focusing on washing up while talking. That was really dumb of me.

"Sorry!"

We finish our showers and dry off, then dress and leave the changing rooms.

"I barely manage it, too," Xander tells me while we're in the hall connecting the rec center to the main house. "Coach Adam keeps increasing how difficult it is as I get better and have more stamina," he sags forward a little. "It's exhausting."

"Waitwaitwait," I stop walking. "So the reason I'm always exhausted after is because it's actually getting more intense?"

"Yeah."

"I hadn't noticed!"

That's the sort of thing I'd normally notice. Coach Adam must be changing it more subtly than just increasing numbers or speed.

"He said he changes things up a little," Xander tells me. "So that it's not always the same thing, so we don't get too used to it. And he's increasing the difficulty as I get more stamina and strength to account for that."

"Huh."

We resume walking and make our way to the dining room. Xander's tail starts wagging really hard as we approach. The reason for that becomes evident when the smoothies Ms. Katie prepared come into view. Two glasses sit on the counter, and the smoothies within have a purplish look to them.

Blueberry smoothies, probably with some strawberry in them as well. They also probably each have a whole banana and some peanut butter and milk. Those three seem to be staples for the post-training smoothies.

"Ms. Katie's not here?" I look around.

She normally hands us the smoothies herself and asks us about the fitness session for a few minutes before Xander takes me home.

"She might have had to go to the bathroom," Xander says. "The smoothies are still fresh, so she ain't been gone long."

How he can tell the smoothies are still fresh, I don't know, but I won't question it. His mind is beyond mine.

Just as I expected, the smoothie's a berry blend with hints of banana and peanut butter. Once we finish them, Xander takes me home and gives me a hug before leaving.

"I'm back!" I let Aunt Rachel know before heading downstairs to do some magic practice.

Once it's finally time for me to begin streaming, I set everything up and wait for the pre-stream intro to finish. Chat is talking about whether or not they think I'll discuss the pictures and short videos I posted over the weekend.

Some of them are from the zoo, and some of them are from the party. Xander was okay with me posting them, though he was pretty clear that I'm not to use them as content. I can talk about them on the stream, but not try to make that stuff as content for my channel.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Another restriction is that none of the stuff where Carter or Tate were shirtless was allowed to get posted. The other boys from the Autumn Realm apparently aren't under that restriction, but Carter and Tate are. That's just because the parents of those two are a little concerned about it due to their content creation side. Aunt Rachel doesn't care about it for me, and when I asked her about that, she said the same thing I thought.

If it's warm out, the same thing can be seen at pretty much any public park in Kenzibri. It's not something inherently sexual, it's just really casual wear.

But I'm respecting the rule Carter and Tate are under, so I didn't post anything where they were shirtless. To be extra safe, I didn't even post anything from our games in the pool.

I also didn't post any of Xander while he was shirtless, since that's an absolute no. Pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and socks are a must for anything he's in.

"Hey, everybody!" I say once my stream begins. "I want to get on the server pretty fast since we've only got half an hour before the new members show up, but I saw that some of you wanted to know more about the stuff I posted yesterday!

"So in the Dragon Falls area," I say. "The first Friday of October is a field trip day for all eighth graders attending public schools. They all go to the zoo that's about an hour away. Little less than that. Anyway, while I'm not in school, Xander wanted to go as well so it was a field trip day for him, too! And he invited me since I'm his friend and he didn't want to be the only kid in his group.

"And for the first time probably ever," I say. "Xander popped a surprise on me! It was pretty clear he wasn't happy about doing a surprise, but I liked it! The Autumn Realm crew showed up! So we hung out at the zoo, and oooooooh boy! Did you guys see those videos of the magic animals putting on shows?

"Yeah," I say. "So if you didn't know, Xander's a fairy tale prince. He can communicate with animals. And they love him. A pair of peacocks literally came to do a demonstration for us just for him.

"After the zoo trip," I say. "We all went back to Xander's place, where some others joined us. There, we had a party which lasted until Saturday morning. And no, it wasn't an all-nighter, though some of us were up until about two or so. It was a sleepover, too. We did maze tag, as you can see, and there was swimming – no pictures or videos of that – crafting, video games, and other games.

"In the morning," I continue. "If you check my feed, you'll see pictures of a breakfast table line. That was a decorate-your-own-donut line! Xander made all of the donuts and decorations himself! He even cooked the sausages and eggs! That last part was pretty strange, since Xander doesn't like eggs, but they were good! Not the best, but still good.

"Hm?" I read a message. "Oh, they weren't bad, it was just obvious he's not really cooked eggs before. I think he was also trying to get rid of their flavor."

One of my chatters asks about all of the wolfkin and me being a snow leopardkin.

"Oh, that," I say. "I did get permission to share stuff of people in those forms! So Xander knows a spell which can temporarily transform you into a beastkin. He switches to wolfkin when he's sleeping, though sometimes at other times, too. It's cheap enough in cost that it can be used by anyone with a few hundred mana and there not be an issue. Because of that, he taught it to everyone there who had enough!

"I don't," I say. "But Xander dislikes the number eight… and there were seven other boys who had enough mana. So he offered to turn me into a wolfkin, too! That way, there'd be nine, which is a number he's very much happy with. I asked about being a snow leopardkin instead, and he was cool with that! I guess it was just 'beastkin' rather than 'wolfkin', since that meant there were still eight wolfkin.

"Anyway!" I say. "That was super fun, and I'm kind of disappointed I couldn't stay a snow leopardkin longer. It felt super cool! I did have an urge to just hold my tail in my mouth a lot for some reason, like normal snow leopards do.

"Back to the story," I say. "So after breakfast, we went outside and had a snowball fight, snowman contest, and stuff while everyone was waiting to get picked up. And that ended the party and sleepover! It was awesome, it was amazing, and I'm so glad I got to hang out with everyone!

"I know I'm rushing all of that," I say. "But I do want to get on the server with a lot of time before the new members join! I actually got permission to do something lore-related with the new members, once they've had a few minutes. But I need to do some setup for that. I'll talk more about the party and field trip later!"

When I log onto the server, Lexi greets me in chat and I greet her back. It's just waves from our own languages' characters, since we can't properly translate the chats yet. I still enjoy doing it, though!

It seems there's a thunderstorm going on for the server, so I stick to my cove to do some work. Will the admins clear the weather if it's still going when the new members join? A storm can last an hour or more if we're unlucky.

[Niels – 16 years]

"Steady now!" I call out over the thunder as the ship rocks from side to side. "These waves are harsh! Anyone not necessary for the function of the ship, go below decks and strap yourselves in! To all others, tie yourselves down! Don't let yourself go overboard!"

While I'm not a heavy player of World of Myst, I've played it casually for over seven years now. Never have I encountered waves rocking as much as these ones. The admins must have found a good mod for that.

"Who put you in charge?" Someone approaches, his avatar just as blond as mine, but with a scar on its right cheek.

His avatar's dressed in pants and boots, along with a pair of bracelets. Abs were patterned onto his stomach to give him a more muscular look, which somewhat matches what Axel, one of my triplets, looks like in real life – though he's more than likely wearing a shirt in real life. That's just the character he's playing right now.

Meanwhile, I'm dressed similarly to my avatar. Blue pants, a green shirt, and a pair of boots. I'm even wearing matching boots in real life, which Axel said was a bit extreme since my viewers won't even see my feet for a stream like this.

But I must fully lean into the role, and so I will!

"None need do such a thing!" I say. "'Tis only logic! If you fall overboard from these harsh waves, the blame lies only with you!"

Thunder booms and a massive wave strikes the boat, sending us both sliding. I jerk myself to the side in real life to imitate that.

"Hurry!" I say. "Take cover or strap yourself! This storm's getting worse! The gods of the sea are angry, and have already claimed the life of the ship's captain!"

"I knew I never should've accepted the cruise offer," a girl says, her character firmly tied to a railing. "Never, never, never! First time I do it, and look at where I am! A ship in a storm!"

At least, that's what the transcriptions are saying she's saying. It's in Zrebzialan, which I don't know. No one really speaks it here in Sweden so I never needed to know it before now.

I can barely hear what she's saying, the thunder, rain, and waves in the game are so loud. That's actually rather impressive considering that I'm over half-dragon in the real world. Not that I look it, since my mom was in human form when I was born and so I was born in one.

My normal looks are sun-blond hair and sky-blue eyes, with a lean and lightly-toned build. Though I look rather human, being more than half-dragon comes with benefits, such as my superior hearing.

A part of me wants to turn down the volume of the weather/ambient to make it easier to hear someone who's avatar is only five blocks away from mine, but that would be a bad idea. Having her voice be dampened by the storm only adds to the feel of the danger we're in.

The lore is that five of us were on a short cruise to a tropical island when things suddenly went south. Now, we're facing a storm and the admin playing the captain went overboard right after we all joined the server. Two of the other members are playing as crew mates for the ship, which is a little bit funny because one of them is Kenzibri and the other is British.

And neither speaks the other's language.

"You look strong!" I tell Axel. "Use that might and help the lady out, would you? She'll be safer below deck!"

Axel punches in my direction a few times but heads off to talk with the girl. A few moments later, she breaks the rope and hurries with Axel to go below deck.

The storm continues to rage on and after a couple of minutes, there's a massive crack of lightning. The ship lurches and everything suddenly goes black. After a few seconds of darkness, the sound of the storm fades away. All I can hear now are the sounds of the waves against the shore.

Vision slowly returns and as it does, I find myself and the other six lying on a rocky shore. The ship we were on is now wrecked on the shore, pieces of it scattered around but no loose items within view. Nor are any chests or barrels.

Which suggests nothing for us to loot right away, though it could be that they're just out of view. That would make sense if they want us to have to conclude we should look for something, or for us to talk for a minute first.

"Ooooh," I moan as I shift my character to a sitting position. "All fingers, all toes. Present and accounted for. Nose and eyes, also functional."

"And mouth," Axel says.

"That always works," I say. "Is everyone awake? Any pain?'

"I'm hungry," the Kenzibri girl who was complaining about the cruise offer says. "But otherwise, alright. I think."

The others confirm they're relatively unharmed. Thank the gods the transcriptions work great, or it would be hard to know what everyone is saying right now.

"Look," the other girl in our group says. "There are buildings that way. And someone's coming, I think?"

None of us were told someone would come to us. We helped set up the lore for our arrival here, which is how the cruise came to be. Five people who acquired a ticket for the cruise in some fashion, plus two ship crew. The ship would be struck by a fierce storm and we'd crash somewhere other than the tropical island our vacation was to.

That was where it was left off. I'd assumed this meant we'd have to figure out what to do on our own after the crash, but it seems Xander has other plans.

That's him who's approaching us. He's walking rather than running or run-jumping though, which is a bit odd. That's one of the slowest ways to reach somewhere one can do in this game.

Before the others start moving forward, someone needs to set the current roleplay actions.

"Ooh," I moan a little, and the others look towards me as I make my character shift around a little, in my best approximation of stumbling. "I feel a bit queasy. My land legs have yet to return, too. I'm going to need to sit until the world calms."

The others follow my lead and "discover" as they try to walk that they're unsteady as well. After they all sit down, Xander reaches us.

"Hi," he says in Zrebzialan and starts putting down backpacks in front of each of us. "My name's Alexander, but I prefer Xander so call me that. Here are some starter packs, if y'all want them. There's one for each of you. It's just some basic food and some coins, but you can keep the backpack, too."

"Thank you deeply, sir," I say as I open up the backpack he put in front of me. "Do you perchance have anything to help with nausea? We're all feeling a tad bit queasy after that storm. And do you happen to know where we're at? This doesn't seem to be the island we were heading towards."

"Oh," Xander responds on Swedish. "This is south of Central Plaza. That's Central Plaza up that way," he turns and attacks with his fist in the direction of the buildings we saw, before turning back to me. "I don't know where any tropical islands are here. My islands are probably better. And for nausea, maybe try the bread in your backpack? Toast can help, but I don't know about plain bread."

"I didn't know nausea was going to be an effect the admins gave them," he mutters in Zrebzialan.

That's a more meta thing, so I'll ignore it as I eat a piece of bread from the backpack. None of us actually have the nausea status effect, and I'm guessing he's thinking about in the real world rather than in the game. Bread and toast don't affect the status effect here.

There are nine loaves of bread and nine blueberries in the backpack for food. Accompanying those are nine copper coins.

"I'm all gross from the ocean," the girl who complained about the cruise ticket says. "Is there a shower in Central Plaza?"

"No," Xander answers in Zrebzialan. "I think Lexi built a bathhouse for people to soak in last week, though."

"Who's Lexi?" Leif, my other triplet brother, asks.

"She lives near Central Plaza," Xander says. "I can give a tour, if y'all want."

"That'd be appreciated," I tell him. "It might help us to get our bearings. Oh! I forgot to introduce myself. Sorry, my head's still a little messed up from the storm and crash. My name's Niels, and I'm a hunter from the outskirts of the Soaring Wolf Kingdom."

The others introduce themselves after this, all in character.

Axel's character is a private guard, while Leif's is a farmer. Axel's boss gave him a few weeks off to relax and he chose to take a cruise to do so. Leif's family scrounged up for years to earn the funds to buy a cruise ticket to treat himself as a graduation present.

The Kenzibri woman is Abby, and her character is an influencer who is a trend-setter (her words). The company behind the cruise and island vacation offered her a ticket to help promote their new resort.

The British guy is Kyle, and he won a ticket in a random raffle that he didn't even know he was signed up for. Since it was a free cruise and tropical vacation, he saw no reason to turn it down.

The Kenzbri boy is Niko and the British girl is Olivia. They're both simply employees of the cruise line who survived the storm and crash.

"Okay," Xander says. "So do y'all want the tour?"

We were warned not to do the roleplay too much with him as he won't participate. I'm guessing having to sit there and wait for us to finish our in-character introductions to him and each other bothered him.

While I don't know how well the others will respect that, I know that I will. People also tend to follow my lead even in games so it's best if I respond first.

"A tour would be wonderful," I tell him. "I think I've recovered from the sea enough to walk around."

The others confirm they're well enough to, so we all follow Xander to Central Plaza. He walks just as he did before, and it's so weird having to do the same to follow him. I'm used to sprinting and jumping for speed, not walking.

This feels really slow, but I guess that's just his playstyle. It seems the paths were set up to account for that, too – any height changes on the path have slabs and stairs, preventing him form needing to jump.

"This is Central Plaza," Xander tells us as we enter it. "That big building there is the bank. You can convert coins into different denominations there. That building there is the bathhouse. It might still be under construction. Here's the bakery. It sells baked goods. This one here is Meats and More. It sells stuff from animals, like meat, wool, eggs, and milk. And other stuff."

The shops are close to each other, while the larger buildings are more spread out, with large lawns. Each has plenty of decorations, but not enough to make them feel overstuffed. A road exiting the plaza leads to some additional larger buildings a little bit further away.

At the heart of the plaza is a decent-sized decorative fountain with a waystone sitting as a pillar in its base. It takes me a moment to even realize it's there and another to realize that it's active. There's a water flow from an upper level obstructing the view of it partially.

Did they really stick spawn's waystone in a fountain?

"Right there," he points at the next building. "Is the Smoothies and Jams shop. You can buy smoothies and jams there, and some other stuff. And right here is the grocery store. It's mostly just raw produce, but not exclusively. If there's something you want that's not in its stock list, you can put in a request and I'll think about if I want to grow the crop or not."

I have to avoid laughing at that comment. So he's the one who stocks the grocery store, then? Someone else might start a store to compete with his, growing crops he doesn't.

He seems pretty chill as a person.

"So you're a farmer, then?" I ask.

"I just do stuff," Xander says. "A lot of farming, but also trying to make it look nice and nature-like. Um… I don't know the right way to phrase it. Not natural, since farms don't look like that, but not out of place in nature. And I want to try and renovate a village to better-match the environment, but I ain't good enough at that. So I'm mostly sticking to building farms and trying to make it look like they're a part of the nature growing there."

That seems like a really calm playstyle, and it's one I enjoy. I don't mind doing other stuff, but I do like a more casual play. Helping him out would give me a chance to get to know him as well.

Which is the main reason I accepted joining the server, when Her Majesty let us know that Magus Adrian was asking about inviting us on. Our most powerful cousin is someone I'm interested in getting to know.

Especially since he's a blend of more than just human and dragon.

"Sounds interesting," I tell him. "If you're willing, would you mind allowing me to assist you in this? I prefer to live in a nature-filled environment and have grown quite adept at turning ordinary settings into natural-looking ones."

"Um…" Xander says. "You can't live in my base. But if you promise not to mess up my stuff, I can give you one of the other islands, and we can see how well you do. If you're good at it, and you don't mess with my stuff, then you can help me with detailing."

"So a trial run, then?" I ask. "To see if I am worthy of assisting you?"

"Uh… if that's how you interpret it, then I guess?" He asks.

"Hold on," Abby says. "Did you say 'islands'? What kind of islands are they?"

I hadn't even picked up on that. Xander has a whole set of islands he's living on? That must be fun.

"Fairy islands," he answers. "Hostile mobs don't spawn there so they're safe, and that's perfect for farming. Anyway, that road there leads to the warehouses. You're free to store stuff there, but anything stored in its chests and barrels is free for anyone on the server to use. Try to be considerate of the other members when taking stuff from them, though, okay?"

We all agree to do that, though I'm a little distracted. He's already found a fairy islands biome? The way the game's coded makes it difficult to do a biome search with an external feature. Commands for locating stuff can only search so far.

It can take players years to find fairy islands on their world.

There's no way him finding one already isn't something known in the World of Myst community. I'm a more casual player who doesn't pay attention to that sort of stuff, but I must really not pay attention if I didn't know something as big as someone finding one within a couple of months.

"Good," Xander says. "And that road over there leads to a village. Lexi lives in the village. Be careful of Sig. Seb. He's Seb here. He might steal your stuff. He's been raiding ships and villages. If you don't want him to, just make sure to tell him 'no'. He'll listen.

"Anyway," Xander says. "In the fountain over there is the plaza's waystone. You can activate it if you want."

"Why's it in the fountain?" Abby asks. "I'd rather not get wet when using them."

"Lexi put heating blocks on it," Xander says. "She claims it's sanitized and so that people get cleaned off when teleporting in from elsewhere. It doesn't make any sense to me because it ain't like you'll get dirty, but that's what Lexi insisted was the reason behind it.

"That's all there is for the tour," he says. "Y'all can go do whatever you're going to do now. Niels, please wait."

"Will do, kind sir."

I wait for Xander to do whatever is he's doing while the others start exploring Central Plaza. After about thirty seconds, Xander tosses something onto the ground in front of me, and Axel darts in to pick it up before I can.

"What's this?" Axel asks as he looks at it. "A warp scroll?"

"That's not for you," Xander huffs and a moment later, it reappears in his main hand.

"What the-?" Axel asks.

"And then like this…" Xander mutters, and the scroll appears in my hotbar. "There we go."

Once again, I refrain from laughing. Xander just used commands to access our inventories.

"Don't steal," Xander tells Axel. "That's not yours. Niels, if you're ready, you can go there. I'm gonna teleport, too."

Xander whips out a teleport stone and a few moments later, he vanishes. I wave to my brother, then use the scroll… and find myself in a fairy village.

The village he wants to renovate isn't some random village outside of the fairy islands or a village he built on his own. No, it's the rarest structure in the game, a fairy island village.

What insane luck he has.

"Lemme show you to an island you can build on," Xander says. "Please try to keep it to a more mystical theme, though. That's what I want for my area, okay?"

"That should not be a problem," I tell him. "I hope my skills are sufficient to earn your approval, Sir Xander. And should require assistance in combat, do let me know. I'm a hunter first and foremost, so I can assist you in that area as desired."

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