Magical Girl Cosmos and Ekta the librarian headed into the portal that apparently led to the pne of limbo.

  Alex thought a portal appearing to a universe of shattered reality was a good excuse to get out of this creepy temple.

  “Where are you headed next?” Grace followed Alex toward the clockwork carriage.

  “To the isnd.” Alex held the door open for her. “You coming?”

  “Which isnd?” Grace thought for a moment. “The one we just came from in the river?”

  “Not that one.” Alex pointed up. “The one in the sky.”

  The former succubus blinked a few times. “An isnd in the sky. Cosmos. Things make a bit more sense now.”

  “What are you thinking?” Alex asked.

  “If we don’t need anything else I can expin on the way.” Grace climbed into the carriage.

  Merumeru followed and Fufi came in st.

  After saying goodbye to the maids and clergy, they headed for the slow trek across the frozen terrain back to the portal pipe.

  “Anyway, in the demon community.” Grace said when they were underway. “Cultivating wind or flight or something to that end is considered foolish. The accords say that Cosmos can’t interfere with the world, but it is a bit of a gray area about how high in the sky counts as no longer being on the world. So the higher someone goes the more risk they have from encountering that terrible opponent. The point being, that an isnd in the sky might not count as being a part of Terre at all.”

  “Yeah,” Alex tried to keep track of not crashing the carriage and didn’t meet Grace’s eye to answer. “The isnd is my property from another world.”

  “This would also expin how we lost several demons trying to invade your dreams.” Cosmos mused. “If there are defenses against that kind of attack there must have been traps set to dismiss any demon trying that while you were on the isnd.”

  Alex grumbled. “Are you telling me a bunch of demons would have been defeated just by staying on the isnd.?”

  Graced nodded. “Yes, though you did get a bunch of the demons that were minding the king and the capitol. By the time the angel showed up there was only one of the king’s harem left. If nothing else, I thank you for indirectly removing the obstacles to my escape.”

  “Meru!” Merumeru added.

  It took a day of travel through terrible conditions to get back to the portal nexus at the snowy mountain farm.

  Alex considered taking the sleds off the carriage but decided that could be done when they returned to her cabin, er.. castle… or whatever is up there.

  “It’s been months.” Alex gnced at the leafless apple tree and then to the portal to the sky isnd. “I hope things are going okay up there.”

  After making sure everyone had their plumber outfits cleaned and were nicely presentable, they went into the portal pipe that led to the sky isnd to see how things were going in their absence for most of the winter thus far.

  **SPLASH**

  Alex fell into the frigid water in the castle basement and immediately started shivering, pulling herself out of the water and reaching for her feather duster.

  A couple other spshes followed then a fpping of wings.

  Alex dusted herself off, pulled a soggy grace out of the water and dusted the water off as well.

  Merumeru slimed out, bobbing up and down happily in the cold water that apparently didn’t bother her at all.

  “I’m never going to get used to that.” Alex looked around, finding the basement area to actually look like a basement and not a construction site.

  Considering that this pce had a ceiling it was actually quite dark in the basement now.

  Fufi lit up her forehead gem to provide some better light. “Wow, the people of the town of Yvne have been active while we were going on an adventure.”

  Merumeru kept pying around in the watery basement. Alex couldn’t get her out so decided to leave her alone and let her py. Of note was the network of metal pipes all around the basement. The castle looked to be in the progress of having working plumbing if not already fully functional.

  A quick walk up some stone stairs led to an open area, it looked to be a receiving area. There were some benches, shutters covering windows, a door that led to the outside, drapes around the windows. While not a modern building, they did a great job with what they could find on Alex’s nd.

  “Ladies.” A maid greeted them. “It has been a couple months, welcome back to castle Merumeru.”

  Expecting Merumeru to cheer at this, a quick look around reminded the group that she was still down in the basement pying in the water. But this whole castle idea was originally a model that a slime girl made pying with stone.

  “Greeting miss.” Grace bowed slightly. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I’m Grace.”

  “Grace you say?” The maid looked like she remembered something. “I believe someone is here waiting for you.”

  A pink fmingo with a gem on her forehead entered. “Grace?! Cosmos was right you would be here.”

  Grace gave the fmboyant bird a hug. “Fuzi It has been years. I thought I’d never see you again. What have you been doing all this time?”

  “It was terrible.” Fuzi sobbed. “When the demons got you, I couldn’t get to you anymore. After a while of circling around in the sky trying with no luck because of the king’s barrier Luna called me back to the moon. There I got assigned this terrible task of working at a call center and having to answer the compints of so many people angry at all the magical girls who had to drop everything to go on quests. They are a bunch of ingrates.”

  “Wait.” Alex boggled. “The moon has call centers?”

  Fufi nodded. “Yes, it is a terrible job, but someone has to look out for magical girls from other dimensions.”

  “Weird.” Alex shook her head.

  “Let's give these two some time alone.” Fufi suggested. “You have some things you want to do while we are here?”

  Alex let the magical girl and her newly-reunited fmingo have their privacy and looked around the completed castle. There looked to be plumbing that went up through the ceilings so likely there was plumbing on each floor. Some pipes that looked simir to HVAC style came out of a hearth too in the corner. Some logs were burning in it, making the area warm.

  “I should go take the winterization off the carriage.” Alex headed toward the rge double doors that led outside.

  “Far be it from me to stop you magical girl Alex,” The maid stepped in front of the door. “But the weather outside is quite nasty currently.”

  Alex looked down at her plumber outfit. “But my other outfit is in the carriage. I need a big space to y it down.”

  “While there isn’t a courtyard like a traditional castle, the first floor has a rge enclosed area specifically designed to be open enough to deploy something like one of those rge carriages with the metal tanks on it.”

  “The semi truck? It must be really big.” Alex gaped. “The castle is huge but I don’t remember an open area that was so long.”

  “It is an area alongside the outside wall.” The maid pointed in the direction to go. “Go through that door. It is not heated but you won’t have to walk through hip-deep snow.”

  “Are you saying that this pce is snowed in?” Alex asked.

  “Yes,” The maid replied. “Some ice fairies came and stayed for a couple days after that there has been a slow constant snow coming from the mist that surrounds the isnd.”

  After arriving at the cold area, a sheltered fantasy equivalent to a garage, Alex deployed the carriage, the maid went back inside after asking if anything else was needed. She left the sleds and firs on for now, but went inside and got changed out of the plumber's outfit and back into the toymaker's outfit.

  A few minutes ter Alex heard a knock at the door.

  “Hello?” A familiar voice called out.

  Alex took a moment then opened the door. “Trudy?”

  She wore a normal vilger outfit. “And here I thought you might have forgotten us what with all that important magical girl stuff going on.”

  “Come in.” Alex smiled at the former-maid. “Would you like some tea? Err… wait maybe that is a bad idea. I shouldn't start a fire inside.”

  “We can make tea inside.” Trudy offered. “There is a kitchen in the castle.”

  Alex agreed, wanting to see more of the castle the two of them entered through the side door.

  “How have things been going?” Trudy led the way, holding the door for Alex and Fufi.

  “The truth is it has been a mess.” Alex grumbled. “Several months and things just kept escating. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. Having to rescue a doll, demon civil war, relocating a whole vilge, people getting turned into fairies, and stly some doomsday weapon that shouldn’t be allowed in this world cleaning out demons that are some of the strongest in their sect with ease.”

  “Combat cssers,” Trudy wrinkled her nose. “We were always taught that humans can’t handle a combat css by the kingdom, but after some thought I figure that it takes a special kind of person to level them up and not go crazy.”

  “I don’t even know.” Alex agreed. “It is just reactions and it doesn’t bug me until after the heat of the moment. Mister skeleton is out there in the kingdom somewhere and all the combat cssers we ran into see this angel attack as a moment of weakness and are itching to get out there and press the advantage as much as they can. It makes them seem a bit blood thirsty.”

  Fufi added. “Alex skipped a couple important parts. We started a new isnd nation with refugees. Then more refugees came. And now they have boats and are raiding the shorelines of the kingdom of Jass like pirates.”

  “I believe killing demons is about the only way left for combat cssers in this area.” Alex considered her travels. “Other than some things in the dungeon I haven’t found anything other than demons that count for leveling.”

  “It is almost as if the system itself is trying to send a message.” Fufi sagely said.