Amak was having a particularly concerning day. From its offset, it was already primed to be stressful: Today, of course, was the day Emer’Thalis would have enough energy to open the dungeon. With the access to the settlement interface that Tess had given him, he’d been watching the amount of energy tick up over the course of the day.

Of course, as he’d made it exceedingly clear to Tess, opening the dungeon wasn’t something they’d be doing yet. As only she and he had the ability to do so, it wasn’t something he’d thought to worry about too much.

It feels like they should be back by now, shouldn’t they? He was looking forward to hearing what the next steps of this all would be, but with each passing minute that they failed to show up, he grew more nervous. Idly, he decided to pull up the settlement interface one last time, almost as more of a habit than anything else.

Hmm. There’s a new tab here. Let’s see…

He started to read through the information it contained, only to freeze almost immediately.

They opened the dungeon? But… Then…

He was filled with nothing but pure horror. What could have brought Tess to so completely ignore him unless something had gone seriously wrong? He had to do something!

I’ll have to rally the shadows. Maybe the Drawgin fighters as well. It might be nothing, but this isn’t the sort of thing to underrea-

He froze. Raising his head to the sky, he then blinked.

Is it just me, or is the sky starting to look a bit lighter?

Barb combed through the settlement, working his way through the streets of the ruins until he found his quarry.

“Ah, there you are!” He called out to his companion who appeared to be intently studying a patch of dirt. “Kexstella, would you happen to have seen Jason recently? I thought we might all convene for some tea, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out where he might have gone.”

Kex grunted and shrugged, refusing to take her eyes off the ground before her. “Dunno. Looking for rocks?”

Probably just so, he thought. A shame though. He’ll miss out.

An errant ray of light poked through the clouds, glistening off the various razors and scissors that adorned him.

With a start, however, he recalled that there were no clouds.

He glanced up, shocked to see that the sun was starting to poke through the previously monotonous dark sky.

Huh, he thought. It looks like we’ll have some lovely tea weather after all.

As per usual, Nadja was behind the bar. While she put on a good face and was chatting with everyone present, secretly, her thoughts were elsewhere.

This time, they weren’t even on Tess. True, the bastard of a woman had been occupying much of her headspace lately, but something else loomed over her even more.

What happens next?

This city — this job — it was never meant to be a long term thing. She’d known that from the start. Who would want to live here full time, after all?

Yes, she had a job as the sole bartender of a strange and vaguely mythical bar. Her boss was a dryad, and she got to keep every copper she earned. But when everything was wrapped up and done, she’d be at a loss. She wasn’t, after all, particularly welcome back home, and where else would she go?

If only it weren’t so dreary here. Maybe people would actually stay.

Some sort of commotion broke out as there were a few shouts from the second floor. Somebody get too drunk? Maybe people fighting up there? The builders, the fighters, and the shadows all seemed to hold their liquor better than most, but drinking straight moonshine could get to even an experienced drinker pretty quickly.

With a sigh, she excused herself from behind the bar and ascended the spiraling wooden staircase to the second floor.

What she saw when she got there made her mouth hit the floor.

Light, she realized. For the first time ever, rays of light shone through the trellised roof of the bar. She wasn’t entirely sure how or why or what it meant for her, but she smiled. A stray beam landed on her face, warming her.

Tess aside, she liked this place, she realized. Maybe the light was a sign. Things were about to get better.

Hive Queen Aval’Kethrid lay burrowed under the ground, scratching at the base of her antennae. What a frankly frightening series of nightmares I’ve awoken from. Ah, the burdens of leadership. She’d have to see about acquiring some oil diffusers, or perhaps a sleep tincture.

Although, I do say, I haven’t the foggiest of where I am. Was I sleep burrowing? A dreadful thing that. Not unheard of, but what a scandal it would be for the queen to go about sleep burrowing!

And why, I feel decidedly famished! It was as if she hadn’t eaten in months! For the umpteenth time, she thanks the gods — and Hexaura in particular — that she’d been born a kexid. The way those humans start shriveling up and getting bony when they miss too many meals… poor things. At the very least, even if she needed to eat something, her exoskeleton would maintain its regal bearing nonetheless.

Well, no use dawdling! If I’m unsure of my location, the best plan of action would be to ascend and take the lay of the land. I’m sure everyone is in quite the tizzy if they’ve found me missing. Hopefully she wasn’t beneath the city proper — no one would like having their house burrowed into — but she doubted it. There would surely be tunnels around her if she were.

Deciding to waste no time, the hive queen burrowed upwards as fast as she could, discovering that alongside her hunger came a muscle-deep fatigue. She tried to think back to what she was doing yesterday, but drew a blank. How positively concerning. All she could remember was that she’d gone to bed rather early. She made a note to find a doctor later in the day.

When at last she breached the surface, the sight that greeted her was entirely against her expectations. Barren earth stretched forth in every direction she could see, and the sky was such an unnatural tone as to make her feel as if she were still underground.

Scanning around her, she realized that she wasn’t the only one who’d had a bout of sleep burrowing either. Dozens of other heads poked up from the ground beside her, mandibles clacking about in confusion.

Before they could collect themselves and convene in an orderly fashion, the sky seemed to have second thoughts about its dingy hue. A few beams of light started trickling through, splaying themselves out as they came to rest on the ground.

How peculiar. At the very least, she’d have to find some food soon. It was looking like it would be a rather busy day.

Cal jolted awake with a start.

Was I… sleeping? No, that couldn’t be right. The only possibility was that something had somehow knocked her out. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. The last thing she did remember was…

Faceplanting into a pool of my own blood?

Wow. Love that for me.

She pulled herself from the ground where she ignominiously lay, finding her clothes largely torn and covered in dried blood. More notably, however, were her surroundings.

Everything was too fucking bright.

“Um. Where the hell am I?”

As soon as I made it into my tent, I slumped into bed. Well, almost as soon as I made it into my tent. First was the matter of stripping out of my patchwork, bloody clothing, taking a brief shower, and then changing into my nightgown.

Still, I’d nearly skipped all that and went straight for the furs.

I was exhausted. Too much had happened. Too much mind fuckery. Too many gods and rewards and problems.

On the literal bright side of things, the sky was turning back to normal! Kind of annoying that it chooses to do that right as I’m going to bed, but I’ll take it, I guess!

On the metaphorical less bright side of things, was, well, quite a lot. Everyone had worked themselves into a furor over the sky changing color, and they seemed to decide that the person to turn to for answers was me.

It wasn’t that they were wrong, per se. I did know what had happened. Still, I wasn’t dealing with it right now. I’d earned a little sleep.

Rock had a nice… nap… anyway. He can deal with things for a few hours.

There was a lot that I probably should have been processing right then. My hectic months of traveling about had come to an end. My grand quest was complete. The deadlands would stop expanding, the forest would be safe, and the kexids would all wake up.

There was also the matter of my notification log, which was filled to the brim, alongside whatever strange crystals Hexaura had shoved into my bag. Plus, well, Hartha and Cal had kind of been kidnapped.

I cared. I did. But I cared tomorrow. Now was the time for sleep.

It’s a strange feeling, I reflected. Everything’s been so focused towards this quest.

Not anymore, though. When I awoke tomorrow, it would be time for something new.

Maybe something nice and relaxing. Just kind of chilling out and spending lots of time at the bathhouse.

I snorted, my thoughts running towards my Protagonist’s mark. Fat chance, huh?

Well, that was something exciting, too, I supposed. This chapter of my life had at last come to an end, and with tomorrow, a new one would begin.

With thoughts of magic and adventures rolling around in my head, I fell asleep in no time flat.

Jason sat in a pile of rubble, his recently acquired spatial pouch in his hands. He undid its drawstring and pulled out the two rocks within, one glistening with divine radiance, the other, a void blacker than night.

Today had been a pretty solid day! He’d spent some time with friends, and even made some new ones!

He studied the two rocks in his hands for a while, eventually nodding as he came to a conclusion.

Yup, he decided. These are some pretty cool rocks.

End of Book One