As Liam entered through the portal he felt…weird. In an instant he went from standing on solid ground to feeling like he was mid air before finally finding himself in a completely different area.  


[b][quote]Vincent bowed his head towards Liam respectfully. "Well done."[/quote][/b]


“Right back at ya buddy. Go team and all right?” Liam said as he started catching his breath and calming himself down. Liam suddenly saw a flash of red as he gave a slight grunt. He clutched his stomach as he was met with a horrible sight. Blood was now dripping profusely from his wound as he slowly bled out. His vision began to blur and his head spun like a top as he tried to find a place to sit.


Suddenly everything went black. Liam felt like he was still standing but couldn’t see. It was then that he felt the soft touch and an even softer voice. A voice he had heard all too often and was now accustomed to. 


[b][quote]Liam stepped onto the sigil, and the queen stopped short before touching him. "Oh, gods. You need medical attention." She looked up to her robot escorts and motioned in the air; a tall, red-plated robot jogged forward. The queen smiled warmly and touched Liam's face. "You'll be all right. We're safe here."[/quote][/b]


Liam’s vision returned to him as he stared at the queen, mouth agape. There standing before him was the actual queen of Periphery. And to top it all off she was touching him. Liam tried to move backwards away from the queen…but couldn’t. His whole body was not responding to him at all. As the queen walked away from him, Liam continued to stand in that position as his body slowly came back under his control. With what little movement he had, Liam slowly turned to Vincent, mouth still agape as one trembling finger pointed at the queen. He was about to say something before the medical robots rushed him and began tending to his wounds. 

As the conversation between the group and queen carried on, Liam tuned out everything around him, deciding to recount the events of the past day. So what has happened so far? Well let see I narrowly evaded lightning that turned people to stone. I came into contact with a demon rabbit child thing that probably has rabbies and…other things. oh and said rabbit child controlled an army of Grit who were pretty adamant on killing us and eating our flesh. Then said Grit decided that candy tastes way better than meat and decided to fight for the candy instead. Then a robot savior swooped in with that laser pistol and got us here, where the queen...” Liam thought before his ears picked up a part of the conversation.

[b][quote]"I was under the impression there were more of you."[/quote][/b]

[b][quote]"There were. We lost track of them." [/quote][/b]

The realization that many of the group was not present hit Liam hard. With everything that had happened at this point he had forgotten about the rest of the group. In a rage Liam hit himself on the head a couple of times before sinking his head into his hands. “You fool Carter, you fool.” He mumbled. As much as Liam wanted to put the blame on himself for the others not keeping up with him, he knew that those who fell behind knew the risks before going ahead with the plan. “If you’re up there, keep them safe will you?” He mumbled as he looked towards the sky. Yet again his focus shifted from his thoughts to the conversation between the group and the queen.


[b][quote]"But all is not lost. The stone people can be returned to their former selves. We only need to draw a rune on the statues and place a soul stone on the rune, and the person will breathe again. It is a simple rune, I will teach it to you, if you don't know it.[/quote][/b]


Almost instantly Liam sprang up upon hearing those words from the queen, pushing away the medical robots, who were just about done with his wounds anyways. “W-wait. Your saying that we can bring those people who turned back to normal?” He said, a weak smile appearing on his face. “T-that means we can save Da-“ Liam immediately stopped himself as his smiled vanished and he realised just how stupid his idea was. Not only would the Grit be swarming the top of the wall, Liam would potentially cause the loss of an innocent life just so he could save someone he had considered a very good boss and friend. “On second thought, forget I said that…er your majesty.”  Liam said as he stepped back and let Vincent finished before continuing.


“I have to agree with Vincent somewhat, As much as I want to help you and believe me I do, I worry for my family, and unfortunately in this case family comes first. “ Liam said, all the while averting the gaze of her majesty. “However I think its very clear that all our families live on very different sides of the city. So unless you have a portal that can get us to our houses very quickly we are going to be spending a lot of time away and worst of all, not in a group. But whatever you guys decide, I’m with you one hundred percent.” He said with a smile as he decided to look around.