Some hours before Fiona’s death.

Silas stepped down onto the patio and crossed it to the outdoor table, Josh’s footsteps sounding behind him. He placed his Goblinz Blood down, glass on metal producing a clink, and eased back into his chair, its threads groaning as he gazed up to the sky. His eyes flitted past the three suns, the Sun, Tyr, and Zyfellir: yellow, red, and purple. Neither he nor Josh spoke for a long moment, the breeze whispering in their absence. The lunch party continued without them inside, and the murmured voices and laughter acted as a backdrop to the chaotic symphony of the wind.

There was another clink as Silas picked his beer and took a swig. Its bitterness was onset by its honeyed sweetness, and he licked at his gums before he spoke. “Do you remember how we first met?”

Josh snorted, and as Silas glanced over at his friend, he saw he was smiling dumbly. “141 days ago. Not even five months, but it feels like an eternity ago, man.”

“I’d just come out of the tutorial next to that hub crystal monster. Thought I was a goner for a second before I saw all of you running towards it.”

“Well, if it weren’t for Dom and Sabine, chances are the rest of us would’ve been goners as well,” Josh said with a smirk. “Fucking hell, man, I had no idea how to fight then.”

“Sabine,” Silas said, rolling it out on his tongue as if it was an alien word made of familiar parts, “Sabine. Huh, I’d completely forgotten about her period.” He paused as he heard footsteps on the patio, and he identified its source as Iris from her aura. Without turning around, he gestured at a free seat, and she took the offer a moment later. “We were just talking of the past. Like the start of Riverside and that.”

“Reminiscing,” Josh added.

Taking another swig, Silas snorted as he heard Josh’s comment, wiping the dribbled beer from his lips as he put the bottle down. “Although, now that I think about it, it wasn’t a very pleasant period either. Maybe reflecting is more accurate than reminiscing.”

Lazzaro was a good man, Iris telepathically said. Unlike the two of them, she didn’t have a bottle of Goblinz Blood with her; she hated the stuff.

“That he was,” Josh said. “You know, sometimes I wonder how our lives would have been different if he’d been in charge for longer. Like what if Grace had kept to herself? What if Mike and Sabine had never gathered the courage to try and take over?”

“Probably less death and better conditions, but who knows at the end of the day?” Silas said. “On the other hand, what if we’d never managed to beat Grace and Mike and them lot?”

True, Iris said, raising an even hand which wobbled from side to side. I guess we got a middle result: could’ve been better, could’ve been worse.

“Exactly,” Silas said. “The more I think about it, the more I remember how nasty those times were. The hordes were dreadful, the ratkin were constantly raiding Riverside, and people were so fragmented in general that nothing got done. I much prefer these days; like other than the hordes, when’s the last time we had an attack here?”

“You say that but at least then we didn’t have this pressure on us,” Josh replied. “You know, we weren’t the last defenders of humanity, oh, I mean, uh, democracy? Uh.” Josh shrugged. “You know what I mean. We were just fighting for ourselves, but tomorrow we’ll be fighting for the fate of the world. We’re carrying so many lives on our shoulders.”

Yeah, but we can’t back down now.

“I’m not saying we should,” Josh said, “only that I struggle to wrap my head around the idea that it’s not just Riverside depending on us but also all these humans and even monsters that I’ve never met or known about. It’s all a bit crazy that five months ago I was a fresher at uni, solely thinking about drinking and getting high and girls, and now I struggle to even identify with who I was back then.”

“Crazy,” Silas said without much conviction, his mind focusing on his own past. He had been far lower than Josh then, down at the pits of society, stealing from other homeless to survive and sleeping without the slightest hope for the next day. Of course, he knew why he had had such a hopeless and careless mentality then, and yet like Josh, he couldn’t identify with that at all anymore. It was like trying to fit into old clothes he had long overgrown from an unexpected growth spurt. “Actually, yeah, it is so crazy,” he repeated louder.

“Right, and we’re going to be fighting people who’ve always been at the top,” Josh said. “I remember back at the start looking at the leaderboards and wondering whether I’d ever see these rankers. But now I not only know so many, but we’re also going to be fighting the superstars who’ve been number 1 and 2 for, well, forever.”

And we’re going to win, Iris finished.

“And survive,” Silas added, smiling at the other two.

“Ay, I’ll drink to that,” Josh said.

****

The next day rolled by quicker than most had wished it. Armies were formed and equipped as the difficult question was answered of who would stay and protect Riverside and who would traverse to the prophet’s grove and risk their lives. The town’s population had continued to grow steadily, now standing at just over 13 000, of which 6000 were trained soldiers of some form. Out of these, 5000 were to depart and possibly never return.

New Derby, too, were participating in the war, although not so much because they wanted to but rather because they had no choice. Floyd’s town had at one time towered over Riverside, before then becoming sister settlements, and now finally the Champion fully accepted that New Derby was subservient to Riverside. To put it plainly, not only was Riverside’s military at a higher level now, but it was also allied with countless other settlements around the globe, all of which could dominate New Derby at a moment’s notice. It didn’t help that Floyd’s counterpart in Riverside - Silas - was seen as a central cog to the Meritocracy alliance, meaning the Duellist could request the aid of twenty other Sovereigns anytime he wanted.

Not that their new relationship was much of a loss for New Derby as business boomed, but rather Floyd acknowledged that it wouldn’t be too long before Riverside’s council ruled over not only Riverside but also New Derby. In this world where power was everything, Floyd Godson had totally lost the arms race with his competition. But contrary to taking one last stand, he had decided to go out on good terms with his soon-to-be rulers. Cashing out one final cheque sounded far comfier than ending it all with his head on a stake, at least. As such, New Derby too sent out the majority of their army, a total of 5000 more soldiers.

The location of the grove was plugged into both towns’ teleporters, and both armies departed. Given Silas’s position, he was one of the first to go, arriving in a landscape he could only gulp at. If he had been any less familiar with the mycelia, he would have imagined it 100% a trap. It was similar to the mycelia’s portion of the forest near where Ratterinks had been, only this was ten times that.

Mushrooms and toadstools of all colours and sizes were everywhere, all visible trees covered by mildew and the air thick with spores. Although this place may have once been a grove, Silas had the feeling that was a long time ago as the scenery around him had more in common with a thick rainforest. Fortunately, the area had been prepared for the humans’ arrival as a giant path was cut through the forest, allowing Silas to move without squishing half a dozen flora per step. There were also many mycelia around, both the fungal children of the prophet and their thralls. Thankfully, there were no human thralls here, and Silas was grateful the prophet had been wise enough to hide them away.

The prophet himself was quick to arrive, or to be more specific, five prophets came out from the crowd together, all appearing identical. “Welcome, Silas. Allow me to show you around,” one said.

Silas followed the five, eventually asking, “Will this be a long tour?” He had a feeling something was off.

“Not at all. I could show you this area in detail, but it would be pointless as we will not be fighting here. Rather, I merely intend to show you the focal point as I know you will discover it eventually, anyway, ” the same prophet as before said.

It was only a minute later when Silas realised what was off, as no matter how freakish his surroundings were, it had nothing on the thicket of giant trees in the distance. They were around ten metres tall and iridescent pink, their bark throbbing as if gallons of blood were flowing through them every second. These trees dangled long tentacles which swayed in the wind, and Silas felt they had a life of their own. He could only peek on the outside of this grove as not only were the trees dense enough to hide anything past, but there were also three dozens zombies standing guard ahead of them.

Every one of these zombies had considerable auras, and Silas even recognised three of them: the first a large ogre with yellow tattoos on its grey skin, evidently an ex-Foltrus; the second a pygmy troll; and the third a drakkar Titan with a greatsword. They were the zombies who had accompanied the prophet when he had ambushed Silas after killing Xe’Hekon. However, it also had to be said that while they had been genuine threats then, Silas felt he could clear all thirty-so of these zombies if he needed to now, although it would certainly be a struggle.

“They are merely the visible defence,” the prophet said, no doubt reading his mind. “I would not recommend you try to fight your way in as you will die.”

“Why did you bring me here, then?” Silas asked. Was the prophet going to attack him, after all this time and given the common threat looming over them? It seemed misguided at best.

“As I said, to display the focal point. This,” he said, all five of the prophets waving their hand at the thicket of pink trees, “is my grove. I am aware that you would eventually discover it and be curious, and the best way to rid you of any questionable ideas then is to put it plainly now.”

“So what we just walked through wasn’t your grove?” Silas asked, scratching his head.

“No. That all grew later, but this is the original grove which started my life. You see, I once truly was a part of the Order of Tyr, and in that time I identified as Ferer Greencare, a druid of middling power. I was on an expedition to largely unexplored lands, a region titled the Blackclaw Forest on Caen, when I came upon these trees. I was alone at the time, and I somewhat foolishly advanced to study them. Alas, the tentacles snatched me the second I came into range, and normally I would have been sucked of all life, but there was a dominant tree amongst them in the centre, vastly different in nature. Mutated. It grabbed me from its kin and sucked me dry, but with my lifeforce went my ego, my own person. My mind fused with the tree’s primitive one, both of us changing the other, and that is how the mycelia faction came to be 347 years ago.”

Silas stared deep into the grove but saw no more than last time. “So that’s where your heart is? That’s what Kuraim is heading for?”

“Practically, yes,” the prophet said. “And while the defences are high enough for me to be unconcerned by most invaders, that is not so with him. If he arrives here, he will kill me, and you will not have a chance of victory past that point.”

Grunting, Silas turned and gave the area a once-over. “We’ll see. I’m certainly not keen on getting you killed either way. You got any plans to do with the geography here?”

“Firstly, we fight outside the forest. With our numbers, we would only restrict ourselves if we fought in this terrain.”

“By the way, what are our total numbers? Are they all coming here or?” Silas asked.

“Yes, I have spent everything I have upgrading the teleporter to receive all the arrivals,” the prophet answered. “From my clones, it appears we will have 50 000 troops in total.”