"Do you think we could visit the human settlement, I believe they would be happy to hear that the surface if free of war?" Sydra asked, thinking it would be best to return Silf to her parents while they told the other people in the settlement about the situation on the surface.
"That should be fine, I can take you there in a few minutes. I have to regain the strength I lost when I took on my true form. That is one of the reasons I transformed into this, the other is that it would be easier to discuss things with you, and also so that we could close the palace," Sophia said as she stood up and stretch, before preparing to leave the palace.
"How do the two of you know our language anyway? And how did you come to be able to transform into a human?" Erich asked, wondering why the Queen was able to go back and forth between the two forms. Few creatures out there had the ability to change their appearance by such a large degree.
"Over time my ancestors were able to learn the language of the people on this planet, and the stronger people of my race were able to change their appearance to some degree. It just so happens that this planets dominant species all had these hands that allowed them to pick things up, and that was incredibly helpful to us. That is why we take on the form of humans, or at the very least the upper half of humans." Sophia said, answering Erich's question about the reason behind her transformation.
"Oh that makes sense, but why do you have chairs and couches. Your the only Scorpede that I have seen that can transform your entire body into a humanoid shape. Well, except for your tail," Cidre asked, looking at Sophia's tail that was curled up behind her.
"That is because this half of the palace is for when the rulers of my race were to meet with the rulers of the human settlement. The other half of the palace was made with Scorpedes in mind," Sophia explained, allowing the group to understand why creatures who had multiple legs would need chairs to sit down in. "Anyway, I am feeling better now, so we can head to Tindow," she said.
"Good, I am interested in seeing what type of vehicles your race has," Sydra asked, thinking about how far Tindow might be. Dion had said it was only a few miles from here, but Sydra doubted that the Queen planned on walking that entire distance.
"What do you mean by vehicles? I will be carrying you all there, so I hope your not saying I am no better that a vehicle," Sophia said, looking slightly hurt at Sydra's words.
"Oh no, that is not what I meant at all, I just didn't expect a queen to be willing to carry others around on her tail," Sydra said, trying to come up with an excuse for his rudeness.
"Haha, it doesn't bother me. You all gave me back my freedom after all, so I see no reason to force you to walk that distance when I can get you their in a few minutes," Sophia said as she led everyone outside and began to transform back into the twenty meter tall Scorpede. Once she had finished transforming she lowered her tail to the ground and allowed the group to get on. This time around Dion was staying behind at the palace to begin fixing it up for the Queen.
"Even though there is more room up here, I'm still scared I might fall off," Cidre said as he scooted closer to the middle. The end of the tail was around five meters in width so there was plenty of room for the group to stand on top of it without to much fear of falling off.
"I still am embarrassed about the fact that I was petting something that had the same amount of intelligence as a human," Erich said, thinking about he had vigorously petted Dion on the head, not realizing that it wasn't a pet.
"Just think about it like this, you like it when you get a massage, or when someone scratches your back, right? That is all you were doing, nothing else," Sydra said, trying to comfort Erich.
A few minutes later and the outline of houses began to appear in the groups line of sight. The houses were spread a short distance away from one another, and surrounding them were fields of some type of plant. As the group got closer, they noticed a large collection of house's that must be the main settlement. In the very center of the settlement was a gigantic crystal that lit up the entire area surrounding Tindow. On the cave ceiling were also a larger amount of crystals that shined a good amount of light back down to the ground. The ground was covered in a light blue grass, and all types of plants were growing around the area. Running out of a forest was a small stream, which was probably the place that Tindow got their drinking water from.
"I wonder what those crystals are, to be able to let life thrive in such an area. If the light of those crystals didn't also show the cave that surrounds us, I would swear we were outside," Robert said, looking around at the beautiful scenery.
When the Queen was around two hundred feet from the center settlement she lowered her tail and allowed the group to get off. By now the people in the settlement had become aware of the Queen's presence, and they came out of their homes to see what brought her here.
"Your majesty, what brings you over to our settlement?" asked a thin looking man as he bowed his head to the shrinking Queen. Once she was back to her human form she looked around before answering.
"I came here to bring you all these guest. They came from the outside world and bring news that is sure to make you happy," Sophia said as she stepped aside and allowed Sydra to step forward.
"The outside world? Do you mean to tell us the war is finally over, after so many decades?" The thin man asked looking at Sydra, who was still wearing his bone armor that was covered in the blood of the Red Coats he killed.
"Yes, although I am not certain what war you mean, I am able to tell you all that there is no war going on at the moment on the surface. In fact, as far as I know there hasn't been a war for the past twenty thousand years. However, the area surrounding this place on the surface is covered in a humongous forest, and it may difficult for you to reestablish yourselves up there. Who is the leader of this settlement, I would like to talk to him privately," Sydra said, wondering if this group of people who had been self-sufficient for so long would even want to return to the surface.
"That would be my father, I can lead you back to our home to discuss things with him. Will your Majesty be coming with us?" The thin man asked, turning to look at Sophia.
"I will be staying here with the others, there are a few things I need to do here," Sophia answered, before turning away and looking back into the crowd for someone. Seeing that the Queen was busy doing something else, the thin man gestured for Sydra to follow him back into the town. Before leaving, Sydra told the others to search for Silf's parents, and the parents of anyone else that had their children taken away to be experimented on and tell them what happened. After they were done with that, they should tell the people about the surface, and how things were progressing.
...
"My name is Clark, and I came out to meet with the Queen on my fathers behalf as he is injured at the moment and can not leave the house," Clark said as he led Sydra through the empty streets towards a large house that was situated beside the large crystal.
"It is nice to meet you, my name is Sydra Glass. May I ask what kind of injury your father has, and why no one has healed him yet with their powers?" Sydra asked, wondering how in such a large settlement there wasn't someone who could have healed Clark's father.
"He lost all feeling in his legs when he fell off of a roof that he had been working on, and the reason no one healed him would be because no one here has a healing power. It may sound odd to someone who is from the surface, and has probably seen all types of powers, but almost everyone here has some type of earth power. The only person who received a power that didn't have to do with controlling earth was the young girl Silf that was with you," Clark said sadly, as he opened the door to the house.
'Only the power to control earth? I wonder how these people came from having the power to slow the descent of a meteorite, to only having the power of earth,' Sydra wondered as he followed Clark inside the house.