The Matriarch (1)

Going inside the wooden house, Emily glanced around and discovered it was larger than it looked outside.

The door immediately leads them to a very inviting living room, with simple wood furniture of a large table and several chairs, an oddly inviting reading nook with a sturdy bookshelf with oddities displayed, and a rag of some animal on the floor. 

Looking further she could see a hallway with four doors and a stair on the far right. She crinkled her face on that because there was no hint of a second floor outside at all!

What gets her attention more is the person sitting on one of the wooden chairs. It was an old lady, wearing some old lacy gown and some simple jewelry, she looked like some noble which looked so out-of-place with whatever was going on. Unsmiling, looking intensely at her, unmoving.

Emily looked on confused and stopped in her tracks, and only continued walking towards the old lady when Duke gave her a slight push.

She stood near the old lady and introduced herself politely, "How are you doing? My name is Emily Howard." 

She wanted to scream bloody murder, to shake the unmoving lady to know what exactly was going on, where are they, and how they came here, but she needed to be on the safe side of things first. There is something else going on besides the place. Besides the dinosaur. Besides the tribal men. Especially with the people who are in this house right now.

Emily waited for an answer from the lady, the stare and the unmoving body giving her goosebumps, a stream of sweat making her bra and pants stick to her grimy body.

An eternity passed, or a minute or two, and the old lady opened her mouth a little, to say, "How do you do? My name is Leticia Auschwitz. You must be quite bewildered by your transition, why don't you join me for a cup of tea and sit for a while, Miss Howard."

It was an order: Emily breathed deeply before choosing the chair furthest away. If she is going to be killed, it's not going to be by this lady, no siree.

Besides, she must not smell the nicest right now, she feels a bit ashamed to look and smell like a caveman and then sit beside this lady. 

Why is she thinking about these? Focus. 

Meanwhile, Duke must have been preparing the tea, because after sitting, she found Duke settling a wooden tray with two cups of steaming tea and some baked cookies.

Kind of sexy when you think about what Christine said about Duke, a plaything of the hag. Hmm. 

The lady Auschwitz waited for Duke to serve the tea and go out of the room before she opened her mouth again.

"Why don't we try the tea while it's warm?" The lady smiled as if this was just a pleasant afternoon to have a bloody tea.

Emily smiled back, she felt like it was more like a wince but she did it, and tried the tea. Surprisingly, it smelled a bit floral and tasted sweet. She was never a tea person but this one she could tolerate drinking it, this once or another two times, maybe.

While she was enjoying the tea and eating the cookies, she also silently looked around once more. Everything in the room is made out of basic materials like wood and stone. If you look closely, like she is now on the table, there were some little designs embossed on it, some borders, and little drawings etched ever so small in such detail. 

Lady Auschwitz noticed her admiration for the craftsmanship and quipped, "It is nicely done, isn't it? Moreover, thinking about our lack of proper materials, Sasha did a good job in making do with what we have."

Who is Sasha? Her face might have shown her confusion because the old lady laughed and said, "Pardon me, Miss Howard, Sasha is one of my followers here. She is in charge of the construction of furniture for everyone in this village."

Emily nodded thoughtfully and asked what she was dying to ask since the beginning, "Pardon me as well my Lady, but where exactly is this village?"

She smiled and asked back, "Where do you think we are, Miss Howard?"

"The only thing I'm sure of is we are not in Kansas anymore."

****************

On the second floor of the house, the eight teenagers who greeted Duke and Emily at the village gate were all hanging around and asking Duke some questions about the girl.

"Where did you find her?" 

"Is she one of us?"

"Why is she alone?"

Duke raised his hands and the group quieted down. They waited until he sat down on one of the chairs and he said, "I found her climbing down a tree, near the Mammoth's feeding area."

One of the girls, the one who was wearing shorts and a tank top, laughed at that, "Climbing down a tree? That's a joke right?"

Someone else, a teen male wearing shorts and a t-shirt sneered at her, "Just because you are physically weak, doesn't mean every female is, dingus."

The girl frowned at that, "I'm not weak, I know how to fight."

"Carrying that spear doesn't translate to knowing how to use it, dingus."

The others laughed at that, and the girl just rolled her eyes at him and looked back to Duke, "What was she doing in the tree? And that place is far from the Evocation site, right?"

Duke looked as if he was thinking and said, "Maybe she heard us while we were hunting the tiger."

The girls shuddered at that. Even though they have been in this place for a while now, they could not bear to think about murdering animals like some barbarians. The reason why they respected Duke a lot was because he was the only one who dared be close to the tribal men and hunt with them, successfully at that.

One of the dark-haired teens who was wearing an eyeglass spoke, "If she walked away from the site, doesn't it mean that she has no idea what is going on? Like the others?"

Duke nodded once again, "That is also what I thought. Did the alarm sound at all when I was outside?"

One of the girls whose hair is in a braid chimed in, "Nope! There were no notifications at all. The message I saw earlier was just a notification that you cleared some kind of dangerous tile but that's it."

"Why were you checking the messages anyway, Clarisse? Was it not Alexander's turn to do that this week?"

Clarisse pouted, "But I like being the one to report things. Just give the post to me permanently and everyone will be happy."

A red-haired boy laughed and said, "She threatened me with a cudgel and some cookies. Honestly, I'd rather do the wood chopping than be a nosy bird all day."

They all laughed at that. 

Except for Duke, he seemed to be still in thought.

Clarisse noticed that he was being quiet, and nudged him, "Hey, Duke, what do you think will be her role in all of this?"

The others looked at Duke attentively again.

He looked at all of them before he answered, "I don't know. I just hope that she will be able to help us complete our goal.".