Alejandra stared at the little blue Motorola radio in her hand as her husband's voice crackled over the speaker, telling her a story that just a few days ago would have sounded absurd.

Bugs attacking the camp. Stone enforcers who exploded when the battle turned against them. A badly wounded elf girl.

Her eyes came up from the radio to look at the little clearing. Most of Her girls were collecting chests full of precious metals and minerals that the Keeper had been hiding in its lair just across the way and piling them up in the middle of the clearing. Dinah was the only one not actively hauling chests, and that was because she was currently looking smug as she was carried through the air in one of the bargalest's long-fingered hands.

The rest of the strange snakelike creature's limbs were engaged in collecting the chests and getting them ready for transport.

"We've had some interesting times ourselves," she said once her husband wound down, a half-grin quirking at her lips.

The story of the fight with the Zone Keeper flowed easily, as if she were sharing stories with her squad back in their hooch, rather than on an alien world in a Technicolor jungle. She released the button from time to time to give Matt the opportunity to ask questions or chime in with his own thoughts.

She only left out one part. Because she wanted to see the look on her husband's face when they returned with a new face in tow.

With the death of the Zone Keeper, the bargalest had been released from its control, and had reverted to what Alejandra assumed was its original form. No sharp edges, no giant fangs, no mass of tentacles down the back of its throat. The giant leonine snake creature had gone from a threat to a docile creature in the space of seconds, its long limbs trembling and its eyes half-lidded from fear at first.

Until Dinah had approached it. And within seconds, she had the thing nuzzling against her palm and chirping at it like a deep-voiced songbird. Now she was directing it in the packing operation, and it obeyed her without question, apparently understanding her perfectly.

"We've just adopted another stray, haven't we?" Olivia asked as she thumped down next to Alejandra on the log she sat on. The girl was sweaty and looked exhausted from the exertion of the battle and from the looting afterwards, but she had a big grin on her face.

"It seems that way, yes," Alejandra said, watching Dinah get passed from one big hand to another one so that she could get a better look at one of the chests.

"Is it safe?" she asked next, glancing at Olivia out the corner of her eye.

"According to the scrolls? Yeah. It's basically a big cow. Except, y'know, smarter and bigger and weirder and with a lot more hands." Olivia snorted. "Also it's apparently one of the 'prizes' we get for taking out the Zone Keeper. Like an animal companion kind of thing."

Alejandra paused and frowned. "Is it being forced into serving us?"

"I don't think so," Olivia said after a second. "I think it's more like… 'hey guys, I killed this knight, check out this cool horse he had that I own now.' kind of thing. We could let it go if we want, and it'd probably be fine."

"I don't think we could get Di away from it with a big hammer," Isabel said as she flopped down on the log on Alejandra's other side. "Look at her. She's like a kid with her first puppy."

The Bargalest was making chuffing warbling noises that sounded strangely like laughter as it tossed Dinah back and forth between two of its hands like a juggler with just one ball. Dinah was whooping and hollering with her own laughter as she spun through the air without a care in the world.

"I can't wait to see the look on Dad's face when we get back to the clearing," Liv said with a grin. "'Hey dad, it followed us home, can we keep it?'"

Isabel and Alejandra let out the exact same snort at the exact same time. They both looked at each other in surprise, which only got them laughing.

And for the next few seconds, that's all they did. The energy and fear of the battle draining out of them to the sound of shared merriment.

"The chests are full of metals and stuff," Liv said as the laughter died down. "Ingots, not like raw ore. Dunno if the System put them there, or if its like a cache of emergency supplies from the old days, or what. But there's a lot of them, and we haven't gotten through all of them. I figure Dad can probably put a lot of it to use on the crafting stations. We can probably fashion armour and weapons from most of it."

"Nails," Isabel pointed out. "Dad's gonna want nails."

"Yeah I know, but nails are boring," Liv said, rolling her eyes.

"Hoo," Hoolio agreed from where he sat on her shoulder.

"Oh hey, that reminds me," Isabel snapped her fingers. "Check your coin counters. I got like ten from killing the thing, did you guys get any?"

Alejandra blinked at the sudden change in topic, then pulled out her scroll and checked the little counter on the side. A bit of memory ruffling supplied her with the fact that she'd started the fight with twelve coins in reserve. She'd used a half-dozen on her powers during the fight itself, and now her counter showed 14 remaining.

"Eight," she said after doing the math.

"Same," Liv said, holding up her own scroll, then frowned. "Which puts me at nine. Dang, I used a lot of energy in that fight."

"Hey Dinah," Isabel called out to the girl, who was currently hanging upside down from one of the Bargalest's hands and swinging side to side. "How many coins did you get from that fight?"

"Eight!" the girl called back without checking her scroll. "I checked as soon as the ugly critter took a dirt nap. Why? How many'd you get?"

"Looks like I got two for the killing blow," Bel said thoughtfully. "And then we all got the same amount for participating?"

"Sounds about right," Liv nodded, then glared at her sister. "Which means you don't get to hog all the deathblows. We gotta stagger it around if we wanna keep it equal."

"Hey, that just means you gotta be faster on the trigger, sis," Bel said, grinning at her little sister. "Git gud."

"Oh you did not," Liv said, glaring.

"Not my fault you're slow," Bel said with a shrug. "Some people are just naturally more talented when it comes to–Hey!" She ducked the clod of dirt that Liv chucked at her head.

"Keep it up, doofus," Liv said, grabbing another hunk of dirt. "I'll show you how fast I really am."

"Bring it on, Godzilla," Bel shot back, grabbing a fistful of dirt for herself.

"Okay, that's enough," Alejandra clapped her hands together. "Both of you go help Dinah pack up the chests. We'll carry them back to the clearing with us."

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"We're heading back?" Liv asked.

"After that? Yes, we are." Alejandra nodded, standing. "We need to go through all the chests in detail, and we need a rest after that fight."

"Don't forget to claim the territory before we leave," Bel said. "That was kinda the whole point, remember?"

"Right," Alejandra nodded in thanks. She would not have remembered. So much of this world was still not second nature to her like it seemed to be for her children. Perhaps she *should* have joined them when they had asked her to play video games with them.

"Oh hey, hold up a sec," Olivia said, , shouldering forward. "Don't claim it just yet. I wanna see what happens on the map when you do it. For science, y'know?"

"Science," Bel snorted. "Right. Because science is what I automatically think about when I hear of monster-infested fantasy magic islands."

"Oh shut up," Liv stuck out her tongue. "Just because I want to know more about how stuff works instead of just defaulting to 'durrrr, Bel Smash!' like some I could name…"

"When have I ever said 'Bel Smash'?" Bel demanded, glaring at her sister.

"That Christmas we got the DVD player/recorder combo?"

"Okay that totally doesn't count. That thing attacked me."

"You were trying to open it with a screwdriver! from the back!"

"The instructions were unclear!"

"Ahem," Alejandra cleared her throat, and raised an eyebrow at her daughters as they both turned to look at her. "So should I claim the territory now, or not?"

Bel and Liv shot each other one last glare before Olivia finally stepped forward and took out her map from Somewhere and unrolled it on the ground. "Alright, gimme a second… So we're here," she stabbed a point in the map with her finger. "Oh hey, check this out. There are like five more hexes revealed than there were when we stepped into the Zone Keeper's hex."

Alejandra craned her neck. Sure enough, each of the hexes surrounding the one they were now in–with the exception of the one on the edge they had already explored–were lit up and colored. There were also a couple with small numbers in the 'corners of the hex. Their current hex also had several numbers in the corners, colored red, blue, gray, green and brown, and one larger golden number right in the center of the hex. They were all around 3 or 4, except the red number which showed 0, and the gold number which showed 8.

"Oh that's cool," Olivia said, leaning closer. "Those weren't there before. I think killing the Keeper must have upgraded the map or something. Or maybe there's something in one of the chests thats having an effect on it."

"What are the numbers?" Bel asked, also leaning in.

"I think they're, like, resources? Don't know which are which, but like, I'd bet they each tell us how many of a type of natural resource is here in this hex that we can exploit. Like maybe the gray one is for minerals or something?"

"If that's true," Bel said thoughtfully, "we should get Dinah over here. She's the Nature Warden or whatever, right? Maybe her Consul type will let her know what those numbers really mean."

"Oh, good idea! Hey Di! Stop playing pattycake with the hechatoncares and come over here for a second, will you?"

There was a brief moment of silence.

"With the what?" said Alejandra, Bel, and Dinah all at the same time.

"Oh my god you people need to read a freaking book," Liv threw her hands up in disgust. "It's an ancient greek monster, helped Zeus overthrow the Titans, guards the deepest pit of Tartarus, has 50 heads and 100 hands?"

"And you say all that like we're the freaks for not knowing that," Bel dead-panned.

"Hoolio, go peck my sister's nose off, will you?"

"Hoo." Hoolio looked at Bel, who gave him a toothy smile. The owl very deliberately ruffled his feathers and settled in more on his perch on Olivia's shoulder.

"Traitor," the girl grumped.

There was a rustle of movement, and a shadow suddenly was over them all as the Bargalest shuffled over, still carrying Dinah in a seat it had made by lacing the fingers of two of its hands together.

"What am I looking at now?" she asked.

"Do you know what these numbers mean?" Liv showed her the map.

"Not a clue," Di said cheerfully. "But they're kinda pretty. Do the colors mean somethin'?"

"I swear…" Liv muttered.

"I am now going to claim this territory," Alejandra said with a chuckle. "Whatever you are expecting to see, I hope it happens."

She reached for the strange power inside her, the only one she possessed that did not require coins to power. She merely grasped it, leaned down and placed her fingertips against the soil, and claimed.

To an onlooker, it would have seemed like nothing happened. BUt Alejandra felt the change in the air the instant the claim took place. A soft breeze blew through the trees, almost like the jungle sighed in contentment. The air seemed just a bit sweeter, the sun a bit less harsh, and the jungle around them just a touch less dense.

"Okay, that's so cool," Liv said. "The borders around this hex just turned gold, just like the home hex! And the hex between the two is also gold. I think when you claim a territory, it also claims any spaces that would connect it to the home hex."

"Less work for us, then," Bel said.

"Except we still gotta explore the hexes," Dinah pointed out. "Even if we don't claim 'em first."

"Oh right," Bel frowned. "So I guess it works out almost the same, then."

"Hey, I don't mean to be a party pooper," Dinah said, "but I'm hungry, sweaty, and tired. And we just killed the absolute heck outta a demon critter. Can we go home an' celebrate or somethin'?"

"Now that is a good idea," Alejandra said, smiling "Come on everyone, let's gather up the spoils of our victory here and head back home. Your father and brother are waiting for us, and they have their own story to tell."

"Pff," Liv waved her hand dismissively. "What could happen to them with Billy around. I bet they just sat on their butts all day and ate sandwiches and talked about stupid boy stuff."

Alejandra held her tongue and kept her face neutral, but inwardly she was almost giggling at what she expected her daughter's reaction to be when she heard Matty's story.

As they collected the chests from the center of the clearing, each of them taking one that was not too unwieldy and allowing the Bargalest to carry the rest, Alejandra noticed Bel hanging around her and shooting her glances.

"Something you want to talk about?" Alejandra asked as they started walking.

"Yeah," Bel said, her voice quiet. "I was thinking… It was awfully convenient those fairies jumped in when they did. And then I got to thinking, it was kinda funny that they jumped in at all, seeing's how they were kinda hesitant about the whole thing when they first showed up."

Alejandra nodded. She had been having similar thoughts. "Obviously they changed their mind."

"Yeah. And much as I appreciate the help, I can't help wondering why. It's not like we did much convincing from our end."

"You are concerned that they might have darker motives for helping us," Alejandra said, not making it a question.

"I think something changed their minds, and that something wasn't us. Which either means someone else talked them into it, or they found out something that we don't know that made them jump in to help. Notice, they ain't around right now."

"I have noticed." Alejandra glanced around, not seeing either of the little creatures anywhere. Of course, they could be camouflaged like the Bargalest had been, but…

"We will not borrow trouble," she decided. "But we will also be on guard if and when we see them again."

"Just so we're on the same page that something's going on that we don't know about," Bel said, nodding. "Could be nothing, but on this island? I'm not going to lay my bets down until I know I've got a sure thing."

"I will tell tu papa when we see him as well. We will all be wary."

Bel nodded and sped up her gait, moving back to the front of their little procession as they headed back towards the home clearing.

Alejandra and the rest followed close behind, and Alejandra couldn't help but smile as she looked over their strange little group.

The homecoming was going to be interesting, and no mistake.

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