"Your Majesty, there's something urgent that we must discuss." A General named Min Ti said as she walked in the throne room. Several others followed behind her.

Evan looked at them. Clearly they were upset about something.

"Min Ti, and, um...everyone else, what's going on?" He asked.

"We need to talk about this new arrival that you simply let into the castle." Min Ti responded.

"Not to mention that you didn't even question him at all." Another General, Grimm, added.

"He saved Batu and Tani's life." Evan replied back. Min Ti just shook her head.

"Still, as generals of Evermore, it is all our duty to make sure that this man is no threat to you, Your Majesty. That is why we have prepared a trial for him. We've come to you for your approval."

"Uh..." Yeah, maybe Oliver was somewhat suspicious with the mask of his, but surely he could be trusted, right? After all, he saved two of his best friend's lives! Could he really not be trusted?

"Your Majesty, choose wisely. Have a test to see that he is truly loyal or risk having a traitor in our ranks?"

Evan remembered that time. That time where someone had betrayed him, killing one of his dear friends. Luckily it was all fake and just a plan to retrieve something, but after that, Evan had soon decided that he couldn't just let somebody into the ranks so easily for now on. He didn't ever want to be betrayed for real, especially not by someone who he trusted.

"Very well then."

Meanwhile...

Oliver explored the new environment he was introduced to. Well, it was more of exploring the bookshelf in his room. It had many books, all very different from each other. There were dictionaries for different languages, history books, books about different kingdoms that Oliver definitely didn't recognize, etc. Whoever occupied this room probably didn't know much about this world.

He picked up a random book. It was one about the history of the kingdoms, having a small map on the cover and was colored red. He opened it, looking at the first chapter. It seemed to just be about the first civilizations that inhabited the world, with some eventually becoming empires or crumbling away to the ground. He recognized some of the kingdoms. Ding Dong Dell, Al Mamoon, and Hamelin were all there. Speaking of them, what had happened to them? Oliver couldn't remember much before being brought here again. He could remember visiting the world from time to time as he got older, but he hadn't visited for a couple of years.

Or so he thought.

The more he read the book, the more he uncovered. What he found out had shocked him.

The pages had said:

A couple of thousand years ago, a great plague had spread across the land. It had killed many great empires like Hamelin. Hamelin has soon disappeared from existence shortly after the event. Nobody knows where it went, but historians theorized it had something to do with the Great Plague.

Al Mamoon was riddled with constant sand storms. Not many wanted to risk going out, so many were forced to stay indoors and do the best they could to keep the sand out before the storm was over. These storms could last for a couple of days and resulted in many lives lost from starvation, dehydration, sickness, etc. Once the deadly storms were finally over, the remaining survivors tried hard to rebuild their society, but failed. Eventually, they left their home and settled in kingdoms like Ding Dong Dell.

Today, Ding Dong Dell is thriving just like back then. However...

One year ago, Prince Evan, son of King Leonhard, was to be crowned king of Ding Dong Dell. A coup lead by the now known as King Mausinger did not allow this to happen however, and had chased Prince Evan out of the kingdom. Mausinger had now been crowned king and the discrimination that Mouse Kind had endured was now flipped onto the Grimalkin. Grimalkin has been arrested for the smallest things, chased out of their homes, and driven into a small area in the sewers. That was until King Evan, once known as Prince Evan, had finally freed Ding Dong Dell of its leader's blindness. Things were soon back to normal.

Oliver had to close the book for a moment.

Hamelin and Al Mamoon...gone?

Esther, Swaine, Marcissan, were all of them...gone?

How many years had passed since he last visited? What had happened to his friends? What had happened to all the people he helped? Cassiopeia, Mr.Drippy, Kublai, Tengry...

Oliver had to take off his mask for a moment, visibly shaking. No, surely they all didn't die, right...?

Taking a deep breath, he put on his mask. He placed the book back where it was. He realized the map was very different from before. Gosh, that wasn't helping at all.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

"Coming!" Oliver said, stumbling a little before reaching the door, opening it to see a guard.

"King Evan would like to see you in the Throne Room." The guard explained, leaving to who knows where.

What could King Evan want? There was only way to find out. Without a thought, Oliver headed to the Throne Room, preparing himself for what was to come.

(Author's note: oh shoot, hi, I'm back! Ok, so I originally decided that I would quit making this fic, but then I decided to come back to it and got back on here again. I'll be honest, I still don't like how I wrote the first two chapters, but hey, can't really go back, right? Anyways, I wanted to explain what the heck happened and such. In this chapter I decided to go ahead and explain some things about the history and everything. Please give constructive criticism so that I can improve!)