"I...think I prefer walking...." Meinke groaned, and the first moment he could he was off to the bathroom.

"Oh yeah, did I mention that we're still trying to figure out how to get airplanes to work?" Kari decided to mention. "And our boats. They're kind of outdated..."

"When did we have airplanes, whatever those might be?" Nicote asked.

"Since about 5 years ago. You should really read the newspapers." Kari told him.

(my pain level is really high today already despite just waking up, I'll try to keep up where I can @_@)

"Man, he's really gonna have a rough flight.."
Katia shook her head, curious. "So you guys don't really have boats either? That's pretty lame, how do you guys even get around? Does everyone just whip up portals wherever ya need to go somewhere?"

"Katia, please."
Irene sighed.

"No, mum, just think about how cool that could be. We wouldn't even need ships if we could just pop in anywhere in the universe."

"Only some people have those kinds of abilities. Like a fraction of the population. As far as I'm aware, only Nicote, our friend who corralled us here, and some old guy on the governing council can get around wihout walking or cars or anything. And the girl who portrayed us here is he only person who can make portals like that. Usually otherwise you'd need a spell or soemthing. We dont have boats because the sead were kind of dangerous wih the Darkness." Kari explained.

*pokes* you cannot hide....

(blame my Discord group and Med times, having to write two mass combat scenes at once between errands was fun ;;
I have to dm and control 4 characters at once in my Discord alone, lol)

"Well, cars make sense, I guess.. Though I don't think we've needed to use them for years. I mean Earth still has them, but they take forever to get anywhere." Katia folded her hands behind her head.

"When your city only has maybe 30000 people max, it's not like you really need more." Kari shrugged. "And like I said, our technology is kind of.....behind eveyrone else. The Darkness kind of ruins everything, and forgot aircraft."

Meinke returned. Looking a little better.

Nicote was busy watching Irene and looking at all the machinery.

(Discord group is asleep time to sneak back to prps before they keelhaul me back)

"That small, huh? Kinda reminds me of Khavo. What with all the Aeldrians being almost extinct and everything, they really don't have too many people left in their cities either." Katia dropped her antennae slightly.

"And good riddance to that sandpit of a nation." Irene grumbled under her breath, changing the subject immediately.
"So, this darkness you speak of, what exactly is it and how would we even go about combatting it?"

"GOod question. Well, um...Nicote, wanna tell the tale?" Kari asked.

"What? Why?"

"You lived it."

"...ALright. About 60 years ago, our planet was normal. There were many cities and countries, and we were on the same timeline as Earth. However, there came a day when some dove deeper into evil magic then before and rifts opened between Earth and Terrarine. That is how I came to Terrarine, for originally I lived on Earth. The rifts did not close, and the Corruption from the evil magic grew into a force that kept building up, until one day, it exploded into what we have coem to call the Darkness. It spread through the world and my girlfriend and I were barely able to stop it from containing the Last Country, Bildernia. 50 years later, when I was freed from my prison, I learned that time had slowed to the point where a year in Bildernia was 5 on Earth. 50 years had passed, and we were able to push the Darkness back. It slowly dispersed over the next 3 years, but recently it has started to reform, and as the one who is now behind it still holds captive the one who has the spell to unravel the Darkness. It may very well be that he has been killed, and as such, we have had no choice but to look for help outside of our own." Nicote rattled off.

Kari applauded. "Great job, so why aren't you the one who wrote the book for the Archives?"

"We shall not speak of this again." NIcote grumbled.

"I think Cathy did a really good job..." Meinke said.

"Still doesn't answer my question much."
Irene shook her head. She was still skeptical of all this 'magic' business. But it wasn't entirely out of her knowledge, people capable of bending darkness, and time and space were something she had personally seen herself plenty before.
But for such a power to level an entire world..

Now, that seemed almost out of her scope.
Not even her husband and son were capable of such a destructive act with their powers.

"How did you contain it before?"

"I myself do not know, for I was still in training at the time. We stopped the spread with a spell, but we have already exhausted its useage. There is another of the Past, but he is either captured and imprisoned or dead." Nicote stated.

"I thought you were the one who gave him that spell!" Meinke asked.

"I gave it to him. I did not learn it."