Chapter 206: Chapter 206 Poorly Made Plans
"It's not so much a name for a place you are trying to write, it's the same rune, to connect two places. Let's try again, this time here on the library wall. I want a portal to the upstairs to allow people who can't use stairs access up there," said Bridgette, moving over to a blank wall.
Aella took a breath and nodded. She could do this, it wasn't hard. Holding the magical chalk in one hand, she began to draw the spell runes to make a permanent teleport portal.
"These runes won't allow the magic to travel away from the realm, so even if it messes up and opens a portal to somewhere other than where you wanted, it will still be in this realm," explained Bridgette.
"So, I just repeat these exact same runes on the other wall?" asked Aella as she stepped back to examine her work.
"For the most part," nodded Bridgette, looking over the runes herself. "You only have to tweak this one rune to allow for the connection to be active."
Aella made the correction, then traveled to the second-floor wall to draw the second portal. As she finished the last rune, she had just enough time to step back, before it activated. She could feel that it was correct. Stepping through it, she appeared, stepping out of the lower portal.
"It works!" cheered Bridgette, clapping her hands.
"So, I can now make portals to all of the kingdoms in the whole realm!" exclaimed Aella with a smile.
"That's going to be quite a feat. Do you know enough runes to manage that many portals?" asked Bridgette, looking worried.
"I have this list that you drew for me," said Aella, glancing down at the parchment in her hand. I believe that will be enough for me to make a portal courtyard in each kingdom."
"Portal courtyard?" asked Bridgette. "What do you mean?"
"Well, if I want each kingdom to be connected to each other kingdom, then each one will need a door going to the others, so a courtyard full of portals," explained Aella.
"If that's what you have planned, make sure you put the portals in the exact same order at each place. You could have the entrance to the courtyard be where the door to that kingdom would be," offered Bridgette.
"What do you mean?" asked Aella.
"Well, if you have two places, then you only need one door, but if you add a third place, that makes two doors. As you add places, it adds doors, and you don't want people getting confused as to where they need to go," Bridgette explained.
"That's true," said Aella, thinking about how confusing it would be if the doors weren't in the same order at each place. "I'll just have to put signs at the top of each place to tell everyone where each portal goes."
"That wouldn't be a bad idea, anyway, in order to protect the runes from people who might want to harm them," said Bridgette.
Aella nodded and turned towards Precious who had been sleeping on the table behind them while she worked on this. "Time to go, Precious. I have to talk to each kingdom to make sure they are alright with me building these."
Precious sat up and looked at her drowsily, then yawned and stood up to stretch. Aella laughed and snatched him up, plopping him on her shoulder before teleporting to the halflings first. They would probably be the easiest to convince, she thought.
"Excuse me," said Aella to a passing halfling, "I need to talk to you about an idea I had for your country."
"Sorry, lass. I have pigs to feed," grunted the halfling, passing by without pausing.
"Could they be mad at you for disappearing during the storm?" asked Precious.
"I wouldn't think so," murmured Aella. "They needed the lest help during the storms."
"But everything they seem to do revolves around food, and they ran out because you wanted them to feed the whole realm. It almost seems like they worship food."
Aella thought about that for a moment, then nodded. That could be it. Spying another halfling leaning against a tree watching his sheep, Aella headed his way.
"Excuse me, I was wondering if you would be willing to speak with me for a moment?" asked Aella.
"Nope," said the halfling, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pipe.
"If you aren't willing to speak, perhaps you would be willing to listen?" asked Aella, watching as he filled his pipe and lit it.
He didn't respond.
"I understand you are all very upset with me over my disappearance a year ago during the storm, and I sincerely apologize. I'm trying to figure out this whole King of the Realm thing. It's not like there's someone who can show me how to do it."
Still the halfling said nothing.
"Anyway, I've discovered a way to open gateways for people to travel over long distances much quicker than having to walk them. I was thinking I could form a type of courtyard and put the portal doorways inside it? That way if you wanted to buy, sell, or trade your goods with other kingdoms, you could?"
"You have it all wrong, lass," said the halfling after blowing a couple of smoke rings into the air. "We don't want people to have access to our lands. When that fantastic barkeep Bob allowed those people to come over, they stole everything we had. There was nothing we could do. It sounds nice and all, to be able to trade with everyone all over the realm, but there's no way in hell we want them to have unlimited access to our lands!"
Aella stood there for a moment, blinking. Greed had ruined her good plans. With a nod, she teleported away. With what he had said fresh in her mind, she knew there was no way any of the other rulers of the various kingdoms would allow her to build her runic portals either. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more ease armies could march through to other kingdoms with them.
"What now?" asked Precious as she floated over the ocean below her.
"The time of my heat is almost here," said Aella, glancing up at the almost full moon.
"That's not good," said Precious, "Anyone who gets around you will be affected. You're much more powerful now than you were before."
"It shouldn't affect you, because of our bond, but I think I will take this month to prepare a place for a trade hub."
"What for?"
"If I create portals in the middle of a city, or hub, then people can travel from one place to another without any opportunity from that kingdom's leaders to protect their own people from invasions and such. I don't want the same thing to happen to the halflings again."
"But a trade hub would be like a city, right?"
"Yes, I will place one portal in each kingdom, instead of a bunch of them, and those portals will go to the trade hub I will be making."
"But a city will need to have people to enforce rules," said Precious.
"I have people in mind," said Aella with a small smile. I think I need to finish exploring the realm to find the perfect place to build."
"Are you not going to go see Alfred and talk to him first? He might have some other ideas," said Precious, looking around at all of the water below them.
"Why? Alfred probably has his hands full running a city. Besides, it's close enough to the full moon that I don't want to affect him with my pheromones," said Aella.
"He's a hero. He's immune to them," Precious reminded her. "You should also check in with Josephine, too, to let her know you haven't forgotten her offer to take her water powers."
"You're right," nodded Aella with a sigh. There wasn't much time before her pheromones would kick in, so she had to hurry.
Teleporting to the human city, she saw that the dome here had already come down. The workers in the demon city must have started here, since there was plenty of room for error without hurting anything with the empty sections of the city. Spying Alfred far below, talking to someone, Aella flew closer and saw that it was Bridgette. Why was she outside of the library?
"Aella? Aella!" called Bridgette, waving at her as she drew closer.
Alfred looked up and smiled in relief.
"Bridgette was just telling me that you had returned," said Alfred as she landed next to him. "I can't believe you spent the whole last year in a volcano!"
"It was pretty informational," Aella said.
"Did you get your portals built?" asked Bridgette. "I would have thought it would take you far longer than that!"
"No, I changed my mind on what I was going to do," said Aella.
"That's good," nodded Alfred. "I wouldn't have allowed you to build that in my city because of the dangers of being able to protect my people from others. If someone commits a crime, and runs through a portal immediately after, would the authorities from that other kingdom be able to grab the person from the other side, or would the criminal get away? There's too many variables with your idea."
"I thought of that, which is why I'm here to talk to you about it," said Aella. "I need to hash out a plan before the full moon starts."
"Oh, crap!" exclaimed Alfred and Bridgette together.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Sdrawkcab
Sdrawkcab Wonder how bad her pheromones will be with her greater powers, or if she could actually control them better now?
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone