“...and then the Little Guardian sent his captured monsters across the null-water. They dove down, almost too fast to see, their wings buzzing and fluttering so loudly that I could hear them from where I watched,” Valera said, her voice loud and excited - though far less excited than the sounds she was making implied. Still, there was enough excitement to go around. Noise after noise was marked by sharp gasps and squeals by the little ones. Their grubby hands burrowed into the piles of berries placed in front of them, pulling out great handfuls and munching down with wide mouths and even wider eyes.

They looked better than before; they were better than before. No longer plagued by bouts of panic and helplessness at night, with terrible emotions that held down their limbs and froze them in place - not even the newest of them, those that Elara had only recently been able to save from the Nature Core’s dwindling spore-mist. They had fallen in with one another, taking their cues from those who had been saved before them.

The adults didn’t always do nearly so well, though they hid their pain from the others better than the tiny gremlins did, only letting it out when they thought nobody was paying attention.

“And then, and then?” one of the little tykes prompted. It was kinda cute.

“And then he beat back the monsters on the shores, sending them running and buying us enough time to continue on our quest to destroy the evil Nature Core,” Valera answered, resulting in another round of high-pitched cheers. Cores weren’t really evil, she didn’t think. Instinctually predatory, maybe, but evil? Probably not.

Children loved a story of good versus evil, though, and this was an evil that they knew well.

Seeing that Elara had returned with another set of survivors, Valera decided that it was time to wrap things up.

“That’ll be it for today, though. Looks like I’m needed - but later, I can tell you the story of the Little Guardian and the Golem.”

Most of them had been there for that one personally, but - if anything - that made the story even dearer to their tiny hearts. Like they were heroes by proxy.

Some of them certainly seemed to believe it. Valera didn’t argue with that. As far as she was concerned, after what they went through, they were all little heroes.

Standing up to a chorus of disappointment and protests, Valera left to confer with Verdant Grove’s most recent - and currently, only - Seeker. The girl, though the term girl did little to describe what she had become, turned to meet Valera with her ever-present elegance of movement.

Valera couldn’t deny being a little jealous of that, as much as she loved the speed that mana infusion had given her.

“So?” Valera asked. “Is it done?”

“It’s done,” Elara confirmed, looking satisfied with herself. “As of today, the city is free of spore-mist in full.”

Hearing her quiet announcement, a few nearby citizens let out far less quiet cheers, relieved smiles breaking out on their faces. After accepting their congratulations and suffering through a few admittedly rather awkward hugs, Elara turned towards the older Seeker again with an expectant look on her face.

“So when do we go?” the girl asked, eager to move on to the remaining tasks.

Valera shared in that urgency. There was a lot to do: ensuring the city was safe and supplied, finding the Little Guardian, responding to Virtun’s sabotage…

Much to do.

Valera pushed past a curtain of blue-gold vines; they responded lightly to her touch, but not in any threatening manner. Instead, it was almost comforting, the way that the vines would flex and curl gently against her limbs before releasing again, as if providing a plant-themed greeting. She knew from testing that, if she wished, Valera could uproot the vines entirely with no resistance. A far cry from the aggression that they were capable of.

It was a heartening sight; it, among a few other things, was a good indication that their Little Guardian was still slithering about in the darkness of the World Dungeon.

A deep pit soon yawned open below Valera’s feet, all craggy rocks and barren ground, almost empty of the verdant blooms that had overtaken much of the area. The surviving remnants were still covered in ash, ravaged by flames.

The site of the Little Guardian’s descent.

She clambered down a rough-hewn path, heading towards the hole in the pit’s center. Kala peered past its edge, squinting heavily.

“Anything?” Valera asked. The cavern was deep, dropping down far enough that only the woman’s enhanced perception had any hope of making out more than a glow.

That, though, even Valera could see.

A massive Statue of the Little Guardian, far larger than any created before, shining brightly in the dark - one of the biggest signs of the Little Guardian’s survival.

“I think I can make out a way down,” Kala replied. “It might take some doing, though. Cavern’s too deep to just climb down on a rope. Besides, we’d never be able to get back up if we did that.”

Valera nodded. She had asked around and, as far as any of the survivors were aware, the cavern sitting below Verdant Grove wasn’t on any of their maps. If they went down, they’d be moving blind and marking their own passage.

“See there?” Kala said, pointing at a spot in the darkness. It looked like every other spot of darkness. “A series of switchbacks cuts down the side of the cavern for a good bit of the way. Probably carved by monsters moving about, but I doubt we’ll get a better way down. It’ll still require a bit of climbing every once in a while, but nothing too strenuous.

“We’ll get there,” she finished, before pausing. “Doran’s not going to be happy about this, though. I know he was excited about being done with the tunnel today, but he’ll have to break through another wall if we want to reach those switchbacks. Can’t get to them from here.”

The walls of the tunnel were rough and ragged, illuminated by a series of luminescent mosses and mushrooms placed by passersby in recent days. Jagged shards poked out here and there, more than a few sharp enough to pierce unprotected skin. Fibers clung to some, where the volunteer miners had brushed by too closely. It had been darker before, and a few people had been cut by bits of stone.

They healed quickly; the old carver, Garric, had been quite industrious in his crafting of [Little Guardian’s Totem]s and, after being freed, others had followed the example of the first rescued citizen. It meant that the city had a healthy stockpile of [Little Guardian’s Totem]s that had been imbued with power, a fortunate result given the Little Guardian’s absence.

Not only for the utility they provided, but for the reassurance. For each of the survivors, the [Little Guardian’s Totem] was a symbol of safety; of freedom.

Valera wouldn’t have wanted to take that away, to force their reassurance to be passed around in shifts based on who needed its benefits at a specific moment. That seemed inhumane. It was better this way.

The clang of metal against stone began to reach her, and Valera increased her pace to meet it.

“It’s coming down!” she heard a voice shout, followed by a resounding crack. Valera moved faster, zipping through the tunnel until she reached the edge of a crowd. Its members were equipped with an odd mixture of professional and slapdash equipment; pickaxes and chisels and hammers mixed with what could generously be described as large rocks tied to sticks.

Still, it was enough to get the job done; with the work of a few days and many hands to do it with, the danger of the tunnel was almost entirely gone. Some parts had been methodically collapsed, letting the null-water flood in. In the places where that didn’t work - or was simply too dangerous, given null-water’s effects - the tunnel was filled with debris. With the state of the city, there was more than enough to go around.

Pushing through the crowd, Valera found her way to Doran and Erik. The two had taken it upon themselves to lead the efforts in the tunnels, Doran due to his mana-enhanced strength and Erik his ability to organize the volunteers. Consequently, Doran’s face was lined with sweat and grime while Erik’s was relatively clean.

Kala had been right; Doran wasn’t happy to hear that there was still more work to be done.

He still agreed.

The next day, Valera found herself sitting down with a gaggle of children again. Her promise of later had been interpreted as tomorrow, and there was little that she could do to deny so many tiny, hopeful faces. Again, they sat with plates covered in the fruits of the forest, little mouths devouring the food in overstuffed handfuls.

Their smiles did much to blot out the memory of another little face, black and green and twisted in death - made that terrible failure a little easier to swallow. These, at least, had been saved.

“...and, using the power he stole from the Nature Core, the Little Guardian took the evil Golem away, forcing it down into the depths below Verdant Grove for one final battle,” Valera dramatically intoned, bemused by the number of adults that had found their way to the edges of the crowd. They listened, nearly as rapt as the children themselves.

Despite the difference in age, the story meant just as much to them as it did their younger counterparts.

“Did he win?” a precocious little gremlin asked.

“Did he win?” Valera sputtered, as if affronted by the question. “You tell me,” she said, pointing out of a nearby window, the boards nailed over it long since removed, towards the forest of blue and gold. Towards an army of plant-shaped monsters, grown in a few instants and shackled by the Little Guardian’s power.

“He did,” the child whispered, the sentence becoming garbled as a berry found its way into his mouth.

“That he did,” Valera replied, nodding sagely. “And now, just like in the stories, that tiny snake is slithering around in the darkness again. Stronger than ever, and searching for nightmares to overcome.

“But don’t worry; as long as a single child carries a [Little Guardian’s Totem] around their neck, the Little Guardian will always know the way home.”

Truth or not, the story meant a lot to the children; like they would always be connected to the snake that saved them.

And for all Valera knew, it might have been the truth anyway.

The little snake always seemed to surprise her that way.