"The messengers," I muttered.
"Indeed," she agreed. "Meekonia, Alieria, Honolor, and Fieria. She trained each of them in the ways of godly spells until they were ready to spell-forge their own quest items, setting the gears in motion for the final reward of soul-binding. And she is at this very moment training the fifth of them."
"Does that mean we can't see her?" Louie asked.
"No need for haste, child," she replied and smiled. "Our Queen always has time for those of pure heart. But first, we must determine your intentions. Knowing what you know now, how would you help our goddess's cause?"
That's when it all clicked. She wasn't giving us all this information to justify the cost of the quest item to a bunch of newcomers--she knew they were doing good work and didn't need to justify themselves to anyone. What she really wanted to do was give this information to Louie for yet another test.
I was feeling more aggravated by the minute. Why was he being tested when we'd already spent fifty million dollars just to come here?
"Well," Louie began, a bit hesitantly. "My friend Alex has a business. That's how he got the money for us to come here. And I've been getting an allowance for some time, so I've saved some up."
"Louie, you don't have to donate your money here..." I said, a feeling of rage overtaking me at the predatory tactics the faery was using to get even more money out of us, but Louie interrupted me.
"No, it's not like that," he said. "That wouldn't change anything and I want to make a change. I've been looking at real estate in other realms. Somewhere that not too cold but not too hot either. It doesn't have to be a beautiful place, just cheap and relatively safe from predators."
"Why will you buy that place, child?" the faery asked, a warm smile spreading across her lips.
"I have a plan," he said and turned to face me. "Alex, I was planning to tell you about it after we were done with the quest. I want to build a shelter for all the stray dogs in the world."
"You... what?" I mumbled, not quite able to comprehend what he'd said.
I had often caught him watching videos of stray dogs being rescued and I thought he just enjoyed the warm feeling he got from seeing them saved like I did. How could I be so stupid not to think that for him it wasn't just strays being rescued, but dogs like himself finding love and safety.
I had also seen him researching what happened in dog shelters and how the process worked. It had been a hard decision for me to not keep the information hidden from him. The world was a cruel place and even though I'd rather he never found out the ugly truth about the number of dogs euthanized in these places, I knew I couldn't treat him as if he was a child. But to think he'd been planning something this big all along blew my mind.
"Tell us how you will do this," the faery prompted him.
"What? Do you mean now? Like the whole plan?" He asked one question after another without leaving any time for her to answer and his tail started wagging again. "Okay, so I want to get a big lot of land with lots of nature. Trees for everyone to pee on, puddles for the mudders, and grassy hills for the slopers. My initial idea was to fence the whole property so that everyone in there is safe, but the place should also have the possibility of expanding. Then I'll have a building raised for everyone to sleep in. Small kennel rooms with individual beds and toys, and also bigger dorm rooms where the floor is soft. You know, for those who like to sleep with company."
"Of course." The faery nodded and her eyes flashed with warmth. I was wrong to judge her so quickly. She had seen something in Louie and helped him to bring it out.
"Okay," Louie continued, "so once we've got the land and the homes, we'll need to take care of food. I've found some Apocosmos companies that sell dog food cheaply but I'll have to see if the transportation costs make sense."
"Wait, so you do understand money and its worth?" I asked.
"Well, I know it's worth something," he replied , his tongue lolling to the side as he was quickly running out of breath from explaining his plan. "I just haven't bothered with the specific numbers yet. I was going to do that with you."
"Whatever you need," I said and gestured for him to continue.
"Yeah, so we got food sorted and, oh," he jumped as he remembered something more. "The building should have proper plumbing with drinkable water. Okay, I think that's all. We can then start moving the dogs in. Of course, we can keep building while some of them move in."
"How are the dogs going to be moved there, Louie?" I asked, already very invested in what he was trying to do.
"We could adopt them one by one, but that would take too long and we don't have time," he said passionately. "Thousands of dogs are killed every day, so I need to take drastic measures. We are going to go from one shelter to the next and take all the dogs at once."
"What about the cats?" I asked.
Louie gave me the side-eye. "Let's focus on the dogs for now. Of course, if dogs start disappearing, or a new organization takes all of them, people might start thinking something bad is happening to them. So I was talking with Tony--"
"Tony? Our Tony?" I asked, confused. "Our vampire nighttime-DEM-delivery-guy Tony? Is that why you were always talking to him?"
"Yes, him. He said a cousin of
