THE KEEPERS RISE

Chapter 1 - Reaching Nirva - Part 4

*Remember to click the play button to listen to the soundtrack as you read!*

Miss Lexio stopped at a long building with a bland gray exterior, labeled 'Trekorona County Orphanage'. She stuck a key in the door, then stood aside as the children pushed it open and scrambled inside to avoid getting any wetter. "Dinner at 1900 hours," she told them, shaking her fur just outside the doorway before heading in.

Cha observed that the building was about twice as deep as it was wide, but the entry hall that contained the dining tables and play space only covered half the distance. A few doors at the back looked like they went farther into the building. Stairs in the middle of the back wall led to an upper floor.

As soon as the crowd of children had spread out to wait or play, Velda hurried up the stairs at the back of the entry hall, making sure nobody followed her. She reached a short hallway that split the upper floor in two and went right, into the back half of the orphanage.

Cha saw a strange sight. Very unlike the dormitories in humanoid cultures that were full of beds, this one was full of poles, jutting from the floor to the ceiling. Looking closer, the vaya counted four lines of them, and a larger gap in the middle to walk through. Hung on each pair was a trio of wide hammocks, and they varied in color and patchiness, but all looked rather roughed up. Small wooden ladders lined the walkway, leading to the upper hammocks.

Velda headed into the forest of hammocks and selected her own, the bottom bunk at the back right. Taking one last look around for other meps, she saw Cha staring curiously out the large window at the back of the room. Unlike the farmland and vaguely industrialized streets they had traversed, this view was only of the Nirva forest and a small garden behind the orphanage.

"Your planet is very beautiful," the vaya said. It wasn't using telepathy, either, which Velda took to mean that the vaya was trying to adapt to what she was used to.

Velda smiled and went over to join it. "They don't have any forests where you live?"

"I do not live there anymore, but no, we had no trees."

"How about oceans? Or cities? What was your home like?"

"None of those either, and no, I did not own a house as there were no homes to own. The spirit realm has no material things in it, just magic that is collected for various purposes."

"It must have been rather empty."

"We had each other. And besides, the spirit realm exists so that the vaya to keep watch over the material realm, not their own. Maybe I have seen this forest before, but not like this. Here everything is clearer, with no interference from the difference in realms."

"I don't really understand how realms work, but the material realm must be weird to you. Do you miss the other fa- I mean, vaya?"

"I know I will see them again someday. That is enough."

After silently admiring the forest for a while longer, Velda turned back to the bunk hammock and opened a drawer in the giant wooden pole with cautious slowness. Cha emitted a low, contented sigh and came to her.

Inside the drawer were a few items of clothing like shoes and hats, some books, and a couple of pencils. The vaya was going to ask why Velda had gone into the drawer when she explained, "It has a false bottom. I made it myself."

Cha laughed to itself as Velda pushed the things to the front. She took off the back panel of the drawer with both hands, revealing a thin, teal crystal about as long as her hand, spotted with cloudy light and dark patches on the inside. As she inspected it, it started to glow just a little. However, unlike the green Powerstone, no magic condensed from the shine.