Such, everyone departed in their respective directions, only meeting at a long, large table in the dining room of the manor. Ollade was sitting at the headmost chair at the end of the table, right of him sat Orpha; Alladen was on his left, one seat over, and the clueless Elkuta and Enfa sat opposite of each other on the seats after Alladen. The tea had been brought already, and all of them had indulged in a bit of dark, in most cases sweet and hot liquid. The past tension of their encounter had faded, changing places with a feeling that could be compared to a family dinner after a long day of exhausting work. "So." After some minutes, the head of the family had spoke up, delighted by the sweet taste of the rolled pastry in his mouth. "I believe it is our time to begin the discussion." He continued, taking a sip of black tea to wash down the sticky sugary wonder down his throat. 

Alladen looked right at his father, stirring the silver spoon in the drink even after the sweetener within it had dissolved long ago. "It won't be good news, I reckon?" He raised his eyebrow. With all the things considered, perhaps it wasn’t too bad to start off so directly. Ollade smiled just a slight amount, shaking his head without a determined purpose, "It's as obvious as it gets, Alladen. As much as I want to pull your horns off for eavesdropping, I'll refrain from it as this conversation should've been held sooner." Sliding his gaze to the right, at the wall by which Moira stood, Ollade rubbed his cheek, "I'll also have to get rid of that stupid rule that prohibits staff from speaking up to their masters. I wonder how many more impediments of past nobility I'll have to get rid off until it finally begins to make sense." Orpha then scoffed with her cup to her lips, "I told you that using old handbooks for staff was an idea full of rubbish." The Duke turned his face aside, "It wasn't the right time to concern ourselves with something so trivial then, this is an issue we would have to go over eventually."

As the grown-ups could help but bicker, the eldest child waited in calm silence. But the sisters felt more of a reaction in that regard. "Why are we here, dad~?" Enfa, the youngest child, with the features mirrored from her older sister, sat in her ash and red dress, carelessly devouring small cubes of marmalade. Licking the sugar powder from the tips of her fingers, her annoyance spilling out without restraint, "I was reading with Poncha and you got me at the best part~ I wanna go read!" She kept squeaking in her parents’ general direction, her mouth muffled by the soft dessert. Waving at Enfa from that distance of a massive table, the Duke settled on collecting himself back together. "Enfa, dear, it won't take long. This concerns Alladen more than you both, but it is still important for you two to hear about our current situation." Ollade’s tone was far more benevolent when he spoke towards his daughters. Elkuta, who was in a sulky mood for a long time already, stared down at the large plate filled atop by a myriad of baked delights, reaching for another eclaire while speaking. "Is this about why you're so busy now?" She asked, and her father didn't hold his word for long. "Exactly that, it is about the reasons why I am so restless from start to finish." Elkuta turned her head to look right, slightly relieved from the soft cream of the eclaire and the topic of this gathering. "Now that you've got your questions out, let me start talking about the actual topic."  

Unsure of where to start, the Duke cleared his throat a couple of times, glanced at Moira by the wall, his son, daughters and discontent wife. "This should only concern the members of the Raressank family, but I'll permit the head maid to listen." He said, taking a bit of time to arrange the next statement, rolling his finger on the wood of the table audibly. "As all of you have noticed, Me and your mother have been in considerable distress since some time ago, the reason for that being..." Ollade bit the inside of his cheek, breathing deeply. He scratched the back of his left hand before moving his hands apart and speaking: "...Is that the entirety of Ranesairan has been transported to a different world altogether, such an event taking place about two weeks ago." The statement was received without a reply, all of the people present took turns drinking their tea.

But then Alladen shook his head, tilting it to the side and squinting his eyes, "What?" The Duke slightly threw up his hands, resting the elbows on the table. Ollade spoke while waving his hands around in narrow circles, "As absurd as it sounds, there are simply too many factors that confirm such a theory." Enfa didn't seem to react altogether, while Elkuta had a similar expression to her brother, a confused, scrunched face with strongly furrowed brows, squinted eyes and suppressed screams of outrage. "H-huh?" She sounded, Alladen made a few gulps out of the cup, almost emptying it completely, "Are you being genuinely serious? This kind of thing doesn't just happen!" The young master stood up, firmly planting his hands on the surface of the table and staring out at his father in disbelief. "Sit down and let me explain, panic won't fix anything." The son obliged. 

He said that but it’s not like he was any less perplexed any time he spoke on this topic. Ollade rubbed his hands together, this gesture one of the few things that allows him to compose himself, and then tried to start speaking again, stopping multiple times before finally managing a sentence. "The first sign was the disappearance of our communications with and including the entire trade fleet, that goes for all the other nations of the island. We worked hard to hide this fact for as long as we did — otherwise the consequences of the public learning of an event like this would be disastrous for all involved parties, to say the least.” The Duke interlocked his fingers, lowering his forearms back to the table, “The south and north transportation stages also vanished without a trace and the east..." He halted for a second, collecting his breath before continuing, "...The east stage leads to a whole new continent with a collection of different countries and species that aren't listed in any of the known indexes of the world we knew." 

“Plain nonsense, basically.”

He thought to himself, but truthfully he could not just admit his honest opinions just like that. Ollade glanced at Orpha before speaking of the point. "What also played a major role in creating the current hypothesis is the fact that the impodium of magic has shifted." Enfa was the only child without a flabbergasted expression on her face, the other two siblings stared at Ollade with agape maws . "WHAT?! The impodium itself? The impodium changed?" Elkuta asked, reciting the many years of magic theory she had to learn in her short life, "That's the most tell-tale sign that something truly astounding has happened, in the absolute size of that word.”Elkuta gripped her head, almost reaching to pull at her horns instead as her gaze shifted to look straight ahead. “If the direction and apogee of magic are easy to manipulate, the impodium is the closest thing we had to a constant metric defining our world.” The Duke tried to keep his eyes mostly away from the two siblings that were briefly losing their minds.  “As you know, even the Waterfall in the Blade Vale doesn't change the impodium of magic." The reasoning was enough to prove that this extreme theory had plausibility to the two.

Gathering his thoughts from the brain scatter that had just assaulted his mind, the young master stood up, almost jumped from his seat again. "What is the proposition that her Excellency Marpha has made, then?" He asked as he remembered what he had overheard. The Duke quickly looked him in the eyes, but it was not much of a reassuring gesture, "That was about the departure of multiple nobles of Ranesairan to the new lands beyond the island." Ollade replied without hesitation. That left the young master speechless, but the momentum that he had managed to amass was carrying his reason past the stress: "Who is supposed to go?" — "Me, Her Excellency Divine Duchess Marpha Yeterikon, Countess Faleya Usurbruk and their servants." Seeing how Ollade used the official titles for both of the women, it created a bitter aftertaste as the Duke preferred to keep it casual among his close people. 

“So little people? Are that really all of the people that were proposed to go?” 

Alladen thought, skeptical of that entire operation, as his father was central to the entire territory of the Raressank dukedom: even a brief departure from the island would mean a significant reduction in the function of the entire coalition against the Unification Legion and the Grand North, Ollade simply played the role of a complete deterrent for those two nations. Absence of long-range communication devices also instilled severe unease in relation to the plan, so if Ollade was really to be gone, he wouldn't be able to know what is happening on the island. "You can't leave the island, father, it is simply not sensible! You absolutely cannot let such a massive hole in the collective defense appear, what's gotten into you?!" Alladen shouted, throwing his right arm over the table as his parents and younger, but not youngest sister watched. "Same goes for my absence in this expedition, I cannot afford not to be aware of the circumstances in those new lands. My participation is crucial for the influence that the expedition could bear." But the reply that the young master received was calm. 

Faced with that stance, Alladen lowered the intensity of his tone. "Doesn’t that mean that someone of your trust would be sufficient, then?" Ollade lifted his eyebrow, taking a deep breath and quickly clicked his tongue multiple times, "You can't be suggesting what I think you've meant." Orpha batted an eye at her son, aware of that pesky, ambitious personality.

"That's just right, father." The young master retorted, sitting down and stuffing a biscuit in his mouth. "I am not as infantile as to think that a proposition like that is without risk.” He added to the previous statement, “However, I am also deeply convicted to act in the general interest of the island, as the father said... I am the future Duke, that is my reason for believing that it would be best to let the current Duke Raressank to stay on Ranesairan and ensure the peaceful climate of the island." His parents stared right into his eyes — Elkuta tried not to pay attention, as it got a bit too heated for her comfort; combined with the revelations that took place mere minutes ago... 

"Then," Orpha spoke up and Alladen was ready to defend his position, "I will write Marpha a personal letter, asking to include you as a part of the expedition as opposed to your father." Alladen bit his tongue as he swallowed on the spot, Ollade was just as flabbergasted as the young man. "What?" The Duke said as he spun his entire body around to face his spouse, without much intonation. "Are you serious, Orpha?" He kept going, trying to comprehend how she was able to let go of her child that easily, let alone allow him to leave the ISLAND itself. That was absolutely and utterly unbefitting of the Dragon he usually knew, so, naturally, Ollade had a thought of his wife being somewhat psychologically unwell. To their disbelief, Orpha only crossed her arms and gritted her teeth: "What do you mean 'What'? Clearly the boy wants to prove himself as a worthy heir, isn't it right, Alladen?" She pushed through the teeth, panning between her spouse and son. "So, go on, I am sure you will do just as well as you did on your duty in Kolanaren." The praise felt abrasive, since Orpha was vehemently opposed to Alladen going to Kolanaren when the idea was being discussed. "Mhm, you're free to go. Why are you so quiet?" Ahh... Yes, her face slowly churned as she looked at her child, obviously trying to hold in tears.

"Mom...?" Now this was the real challenge for the young master of the Raressank Dukedom: try and not make his mother cry. With this predicament in place, Alladen attempted to put on a smile, although it appeared as a forced showmanship to even the most emotionally daft people. "It's nothing, really, I won't be gone for long...”

“I mean I hope I won’t...”

“Besides, I'll be personally with her Excellency Marpha, her order, and likely even other nobles' knights. Can you imagine a more secure place than next to the very Head Priest of the Saruph Ascension Church? You are one of the only people who know her true might!" The attempt at de-escalation failed, as her eyes kept resisting the gradually rising front of salty water on the lower eyelids. Ollade himself felt cornered... So he decided to step in and defuse the situation by hand, "Honey, you don't have to worry that much, Alladen has been trained to fight me of all people, and he is right, Marpha is the most capable magician I know besides the witches, you don't have to weep over his departure as if it is his funeral..." The Duke fell silent afterwards, swallowing.

“Whoever is in charge... Please spare this idiot, I wasn’t thinking enough before speaking, it’s an honest mistake...” 

"Funeral...?" He shouldn't have used a word so cruel in this situation. In chess, this move would've been considered a major blunder.  "N-No! it's not what I meant!" T'was too late, the gates fell, and the mighty dragon was defeated by mere words, bleeding from her heart, but, well, actually from the eyes. The shed beads of sorrow soon were falling onto the precious fabric of the Duke's shirt, while both men tried to hold up the dam with their bare hands, in a lyrical sense. "You caaan't!" Orpha cried, and Ollade hugged and patted her on the back, the face that he hid over her shoulder was less sad or defeated, and more angered as he lamented on his poor skills in calming down the overgrown lizard that he spent the past twenty years with. 

"C'mon, let's go calm down." The Duke said, lifting up the crying woman. Ollade turned to face his son as he slowly made his way out of the dining room, his left shoulder quickly getting wetter with each passing second. "Alladen, we'll talk this over privately at a latter time, ok?" All the pizzazz had vanished from both: his expression and his voice, though the young master did not look any better, the awkward smile still stuck on his face, "Y-Yes!" 

...

"Will you be eating the desserts?" Moira asked, having stood still through the entire ordeal, witnessing each and every development. "Yes." With a brief recuperation, Alladen sat back down, Elkuta kept silently eating the pastries, and Enfa was still careless.