Part 3

Today I met my three advisors. None of them were anything like I had imagined. Linea is a talking pink owl! She brought me another letter from Queen Sophia. Although she has never even met me, Sophia has gone on a journey and left the kingdom in my care. That’s a rather irresponsible thing for her to do. And why does the Queen refer to the citizens as ‘our’ people instead of ‘her’ people?

Linea was also supposed to give me the key to the Skyward Castle but she dropped it somewhere. So my first task as Steward was to find the missing key. We located it in the Forgotten Glen. Guarding it was a little squabbit. There was no sign of his family so I decided to take him with me. Perhaps he will bring me luck.

Captain Greg, the Captain of the Queen’s Guard, was not how I had imagined him to be, either. He has auburn hair, hazel eyes, and can’t be more than twenty-five. I had expected him to be much older.

I also expected him to have better manners. He was quite annoyed at having been kept waiting and rebuked me for being late, then strode toward the Castle without so much as a backward glance to see if I was following.

His manners improved when I was able to come up with a plan to restore the Queen’s Crest and remove the cursed vines from the Castle’s exterior. Suddenly he became very concerned for my safety and tried to put a protective arm around my shoulder when we entered the Castle. But I was having none of that.

Cursed vines covered the walls of the Entrance Hall. This time the Captain came up with the solution to the problem: we would need to search the Forgotten Glen for sky crystals. One look at his face told me it was futile to point out that I had just come from there and hadn’t seen any sky crystals. He was not accustomed to people contradicting him.

It was a good thing that I had said nothing because, sure enough, we found a sky crystal. Actually, my little squabbit found it. When the Captain remarked that luck had been on our side, I knew that I had to name the squabbit Lucky.

We returned to the Castle and used the sky crystal to remove the curse from one wall. Then the Captain went off to do whatever it is he does when he’s not looking down his nose at me, and Linea appeared to escort me to Landsong Village to meet the Mayor.

The Mayor is a Goblin and much older than the Captain. He has white hair, blue eyes, and his glasses are perched on the end of his nose. He also has a very officious manner and insisted I must fill out various forms before I could be allowed the privilege of accompanying him to Mystic Copse and the Forgotten Glen to look for building supplies to repair Town Hall.

The Mayor was impatient for Town Hall to be ‘up and running’ as he put it, and suggested that I use one of the ten tiny sky crystals he had given me to speed up the work. I did so, and in a blink of an eye, the workers had finished.

I was not finished, however. The Mayor showed me the village pedestal and explained that it once contained Relics which, when found, will restore the magical nature of Landsong. It was obvious that I was the person expected to find these missing Relics. In case I had any doubts, the Mayor reminded me that the Relics were lost when Dreadmyre cursed everything.

I had hoped to return to the Forgotten Glen to gather some of the vegetables I had seen there. I don’t think I can assume that whoever stocked my pantry and larder will continue to do so. But when I suggested that I search there for the Relics, the Mayor told me to look in Mystic Copse for the Relic and to go to the Forgotten Glen to find poster glue.

I did as the Mayor asked and soon returned with carrots for Lucky, corn and tomatoes for myself, poster glue for the Mayor and the Landsong Nature Relic. According to the Mayor, placing it in the pedestal would bring life and vibrancy to the natural surroundings.

And so it did. The grass was now green, the trees sprouted leaves, and water cascaded down the falls into the stream below. All that was left to do was to assemble some posters. When finished, the Mayor remarked that I looked tired and hungry and gave me some olives to take home.

I had survived my first day on my own. Lucky squeaked. Guess I’m not on my own after all.

Part 5

Today started out pleasantly enough. There was no sign of Linea which I took to mean that she had neither lost anything nor received a letter from Queen Sophia. The Mayor had gone to the General Store to gossip with Blessilda.

Through the window I had spotted Captain Greg heading for Town Hall, followed by a bevy of besotted village maidens. My office is only slightly larger than a broom closet, so I was grateful that his fan club decided to wait outside for him.

For a change, the Captain was smiling. I have to admit he’s rather attractive when he smiles. Disturbingly so. Especially in such cramped quarters. It seemed an eternity before he finally told me why he had come to see me.

He wondered if I agreed with him that it was time we repaired the Castle walls. I hadn’t really thought about it. I had been too busy finding lost letters and squabbits. But I nodded my head yes.

Captain Greg thereby helped himself to some building supplies and bolgins. Then he invited me to come up to the Castle and watch while he and his soldiers repaired the walls. I shook my head no. I have no intention of joining his fan club. He didn’t seem at all upset that I declined his invitation.

Before long Quinn arrived. He also wanted building supplies so that he could construct a Squabbit Den for Mr Vanderkins and his other animals to prevent them from wandering away. It would also shelter them from the cold.

I gave him the supplies and volunteered to find some pet food provided he and Mr Vanderkins remained in Landsong Village. They could watch and supervise the builders. Lucky was on best behavior and found most of the food. Guess going to bed hungry taught him a lesson.

When we returned from Mystic Copse with the pet food, there was a goblin named Gobie waiting to see me. His friend the Forester, owner of the orchard in the Faire of Light, had gone out to forage for some herbs in the Forgotten Glen and hadn’t returned.

Things are getting out of hand. First a key, then a letter, then a squabbit, and now a goblin has gone missing. If this keeps up, by the end of the week somebody will have lost the Crown Jewels or the Castle. And naturally, when there’s a real problem, all of my advisors are missing in action.

Gobie insisted that I go with him to search the Forgotten Glen for clues. That’s where we found the Forester’s basket. It was covered with thorns and, according to Gobie, these thorns were not from the Forgotten Glen. Further research needed to be done to determine just where those particular thorns came from.

Finally the Mayor showed up. His solution to the problem was for me to make posters while he spoke with the citizens and gathered clues. I noticed that the first citizen he spoke to was Blessilda.

While I was hanging up posters, Gobie returned. He had determined that the thorns came from the Rose Garden and that should be the next place we searched. We found the Forester lying in a ditch and covered with vines.

When we returned to Town Hall, Captain Greg and the Mayor were waiting. The Forester told us about seeing a cloaked man casting some sort of a spell in the forest. The man saw him and trapped him.

According to the Mayor, this was the first time anyone was attacked in this manner. He plans to warn the citizens. I take that to mean that I will be making more posters tomorrow.

The Captain was also worried about the cloaked man and insisted on walking me home. This time, when he put a protective arm around my shoulder, I did not remove it.
 

Part 7

I woke up this morning with puffy eyes and a raging headache brought on from crying myself to sleep.

Captain Greg had said some horrible things to me. He had accused me of deliberately disobeying him and making his job more difficult. And when I tried to explain that I thought the Mayor had already spoken to him, he refused to listen.

At that point, I said some horrible things to him. I told him he was useless as an advisor because he was never around. That he was vain and conceited and only interested in being admired by the dim-witted village girls.

We had continued to trade insults, most of which I can’t even remember. It was when he suggested that I might be in league with the cloaked stranger, seeing as how I was Dreadmyre’s granddaughter, that I slapped him and ran home crying.

Shortly afterward, the Captain had followed me, banging on the door and yelling for me to open it. I had told him to go away, that I never wanted to see him again. Which doesn’t make much sense, now that I think about it, because I had just complained that he was never around.

When I opened my door this morning, I saw the reason he had followed me home. He hadn’t been interested in apologizing, he was just dropping off the food I had left behind. Well, the apples and the coffee beans. There was a note stating that it would be a shame to let the lobster go to waste, so he had taken it for his own dinner.

I noticed on the walk to Town Hall that the posters had been removed. Presumably that meant I was free to leave the Village. Indeed, on my desk was a note from Captain Greg telling me he didn’t care where I went or what I did.

The Mayor had been reading the note when I arrived, but pretended that everything was normal. He mentioned that it might be a good idea to search the Forgotten Glen and find the gems missing from the Armory door in the Fairy Dragon Nest.

Quinn wanted to help me find those gems as a way to repay me for all I have done for him and Mr Vanderkins. He sounded quite sincere and is probably the only person I’ve met that judges me by my actions and not by my grandfather’s. If only Lucky and Mr Vanderkins would get along.

Quinn was pleased that he was the one who found the gems. The two squabbits were pleased that they had found some carrots. I was pleased because they seemed to be getting along. For now. Nevertheless, I decided to bring Quinn and Mr Vanderkins back to Landsong Village before going to the Fairy Dragon Nest to unlock the Armory.

The Mayor seemed surprised to see me and was even more surprised to see that I had found the gemstones. He had apparently forgotten that he sent me to find them but was sure that I’d put them to good use.

Great advisors Queen Sophia chose for me. Linea loses things, the Mayor forgets things, and the Captain yells at me. And he stle my lobster.

I still had a headache, so I decided to check out the General Store. Maybe Blessilda had a potion that would make it go away. She had already sold me one of her energy potions but I haven’t used it yet. I really can’t imagine being tired enough to drink it - it looks and smells vile.

Blessilda told me that lavender was good for getting rid of headaches and also aided sleep. She would put together an infusion and a pillow filled with lavender seeds and leave them at Town Hall for me.

While I waited, I figured I might as well go to the Fairy Dragon Nest and unlock the Armory. As I expected, it was full of weapons and armor. And other than sunflowers, which I picked for the seeds, there was nothing edible in the area.

I returned to Town Hall to find Captain Greg looking through the basket Blessilda had left for me. He seemed quite amused by the contents and raised his eyebrow and smirked when he saw me. Then he dropped a piece of paper on my desk and left without saying a word.

The paper requested that funds and supplies be made available for planting trees around the Castle because "a little bit of nature should help remove the gloomy feel in the castle." Whatever.

It wasn’t until I was getting ready for bed that I found what had amused the Captain so much. Tucked in with the lavender infusion and the sleep pillow was a love potion guaranteed to make the man of my dreams fall madly in love with me.

Part 9

Earlier in the week I had decided that Linea was a tattletale, that the Captain was a Don Juan, and I had wondered what the Mayor’s character flaw was. Today I found out: the Mayor is a coward.

I had spent a pleasant morning with Chumblepot. He has settled in nicely at his Glassworks shop and had nearly finished two pieces. The first one shows the place where Queen Sophia’s journey began, the Dreamless Castle. The second one depicts Moonfell Woods and the Witch’s Tower.

Chumblepot remarked that it was wonderful to be able to create something with your own hands and urged me to give it a try. I gingerly inserted a couple of glass shards in each piece. It was fun and even an expert wouldn’t be able to figure out where Chumblepot’s handiwork stopped and mine began.

Of course, Chumblepot is the one who changed the rather ordinary glass shards that can be found in the Fairy Dragon Nest into the vibrantly colored and intricately shaped pieces that I used. To do so probably required magic.

We were discussing the damaged glasswork in the Castle’s Entrance Hall and Chumblepot had just volunteered to fix it when Linea arrived to tell me there was a problem up at the Castle and my presence was required.

I had not been to visit the Castle since Linea lost the letter from Queen Sophia because I didn’t want Captain Greg to think I was chasing after him. Now I finally had a good reason to check things out and see the new walls and that ‘little bit of nature’ that was supposed to remove the ‘gloomy feel’ around the Castle.

There was quite a crowd gathered around the empty pond. In the center of the pond was an object emitting a purple haze very similar to the one emitted by the cursed vines that still cover one wall of the Castle’s Entrance Hall.

The Mayor told me he was too scared to investigate the mysterious object and therefore I would have to check it out. As I stepped into the dried up pond, I wondered if there was anything the Mayor was capable of doing besides making posters.

I was about to touch the mysterious object when Captain Greg called out ‘Berengaria, no!’ and with one arm lifted me out of the pond. Seconds later, a cloaked figure rose up from the orb and the pond filled with cursed purple vines. Then the Captain held me close while he stroked my hair and whispered soothingly ‘I’ve got you. You’re safe.’ over and over.

The moment was spoiled by the Mayor jabbering on, asking if we had seen the cloaked figure rising up from the orb and pointing out what was painfully obvious: that the orb had cursed the pond and that the cloaked man had nearly abducted me. The Mayor had added that I was very brave to have checked out the orb, and under his breath the Captain muttered that the Mayor had been very cowardly not to check it out himself.

The peddler had observed everything and came forward to offer his services for free.. If I could find him a few magic items, he could dispel the curse while it was still weak. But he stressed that this is a one time offer made only because there’s a danger the curse could spread beyond the pond.

I was pretty sure I had some of the items requested back at Town Hall but first I needed to find Lucky. He was sitting under one of those new trees the Captain had planted, munching on a carrot he had found somewhere. I picked him up and held him close, relieved that he was safe.

Captain Greg escorted me back to Town Hall and insisted on accompanying me to Ancient Pond to look for the items on the Peddler’s list that I didn’t already have. This would be my first visit there and I was glad to accept his offer.

I’m not sure what the Peddler did with the various runes and sky crystal earrings he had requested, but whatever it was, it removed the curse. Going back on his word, the Peddler decided to take the ominous orb as payment for his services. He then warned me to keep my guard up because it seemed that someone wasn’t pleased with me restoring the kingdom.

Well, I’m not pleased with someone cursing the kingdom, so I guess that makes us even. I was pleased, however, when once again the Captain offered to walk me home.