This is probably about the right place for me to speed up the flow of time a bit, and to jump a little further on in ahead.

Those days back then were really some of the happiest days of my life. Getting to know Praxa, and Aaron, and Lily, and learning how to become an adventurer, and making my way through the world, after spending so long in the prisons, and in my cell… all of that was really an amazing time for me. But, really, I don’t think that too much happened during those days that you wouldn’t have been able to predict. So, I’ll just try to give a bit of an outline of what my life was like back then, before my adventures resumed in earnest.

The two kids ended up really liking the daycare that they had stayed at, which was very welcome news to me. During their time there, they became very close friends with a young lizard-girl named Sarah, and I would often find the three of them sitting together in a corner of the main room, playing a game, or talking about their lives. But after about a week of that, she ended up leaving to go back to her home at the Kingdom of the Green Tower, which was very hard for both Aaron and Lily.

Right after she had left, I promised the two of them that we would try to go out that way to see her again. But at the same time, I worried that I might not be able to carry through on that promise.

The situation in the world seemed to be getting worse almost by the day. There had been a few assassinations in just the last couple of days, and there had been quite a few skirmishes between groups of mercenaries, proxy wars for the coming war between the nations. Just as we had expected, the protection from the City of the Blue Tower had been revoked from Westfall – giving us about three weeks from the time of the debate to evacuate – and every day, there seemed to be fewer and fewer neutral communities. It seemed likely that there would be a war in the next couple of months, at the latest, and the lines had been drawn up such that it was the City of the Red Tower, on the one side, against the Yellow and the Green, on the other.

It was terrifying to hear about all of the armies assembling, and in those days, I would often see some young man or woman huddled alone in an alley, or standing with a friend or two, weeping softly at the thought of everything that was about to occur. At the same time, you could really feel in the town how much hatred there was for the City of the Red Tower, and many seemed to be more than willing to die in order to have the chance to strike a blow against the slavers.

But even though things were getting a lot worse right then, and even though there was so much fear, and so much hatred, I still felt alright somehow. In spite of the turmoil that was boiling up around me, my own circumstances could hardly have been much better. And even though I would have nightmares from time to time, they didn’t prevent me from appreciating what I had in the present moment. If anything, the awareness that I might lose all of this so quickly only added to the pleasure that I felt in those days, and it deepened my appreciation for what my life had become.

In the mornings, after I had left each of the children at the daycare, I would head out to the large, wooden gate, and meet up with Praxa outside of the walls. She would be waiting for me near the open field, with her bow slung around her back, and the light playing across her hair. And then, when she saw me, she would race up to greet me, before the two of us walked side by side through the fields, and towards the dungeons.

I didn’t have the courage yet to tell her how I felt. But even still, it didn’t really seem to matter. Whenever the two of us discussed our future, we always took it for granted that we would be there together, and that we would support one another in the days ahead. And the longer that we spent with each other, the more often she would rest her head on my shoulder, or give me a soft, and contented smile, as we walked quietly through the floors of the dungeons.

Of course, I knew that someday, I would have to tell her how much I really loved her. But for now, I didn’t feel the need to rush things ahead, or to push it all too much further. So, the two of us simply spent our days together – what were some of the happiest days of my life – as we laughed, and played, and passed the time, spending many tender moments in a state of deep contentment, as we enjoyed the feeling of being with one another, and appreciated everything that had happened so far, and all that was yet to come.

But in spite of the happiness that I felt being in her company, and being in the company of each of the children as well, there was still a dark cloud that hovered over all of us back then. In truth, none of us really knew if we would be alive or dead by the end of the year. We hoped that we would be safe in Riverdale, once Roger had returned. But we had no idea if we truly would be. If the war grew to the sort of scale that it seemed likely to take, then it was hard to imagine how any town could stand out of the way of the conflict. Perhaps we would be able to stay hidden. But it was just as likely that we would be discovered, and that we would have to fight, and perhaps to die.

I thought about maybe trying to head out towards the Wild Lands, or maybe even running after that vault in the canyon, and seeking for some sort of safety there, or some sort of power that I could use to survive. But the monsters out that there were still way too much for us to handle, and there was no one that I could trust as a guide. Not only that, but I had begun to grow more and more worried that someone might be waiting for me out there, and might try to kill me if they discovered what had brought me to that place. And so that, combined with how unlikely it was that I would be able to actually find the vault even if I tried, kept me from wanting to head out to that canyon anytime too soon.

That meant that for now, there was nothing to do but to continue to train. Praxa and I had gotten all the way up to level 49, and we had reached the 48th floor together, too. But we hadn’t been able to get up to the fiftieth floor yet, even though we had wanted to. And right then, that was probably what each of us were looking forward to the most, even though we were both kind of worried that we weren’t gaining quite so many levels as before, and that we might not really be able to get that much more powerful in the future – and certainly not powerful enough to be able to withstand the kinds of dangers that we would be likely to encounter in the days ahead.

And so even though those were remarkably happy days for me, they took place against a backdrop of worry, that added to the vividness of those moments, but that troubled my heart all the same.

At any rate, that was the point that I had reached on the day where my story should resume. I had just woken up in the little home and had begun to stretch out and to read a book, when Aaron and Lily came over, and let me know that my breakfast was ready. Apparently, they were both quite excited to talk to me, and they began to tell me all about how they had discovered that Roger had once been one of the very greatest heroes of his day. If the book that they read was to be believed, he had even once been the head of the Guild of Knights, which was incredibly impressive; and it made me feel a lot safer hearing that, even though I understood that no man would really be able to do all that much by himself, no matter how strong he became. After all, super heroes and villains were just the stuff of myths and legends, even in this world; for here, just as back on Earth, numbers were really what mattered – and an army of a million men would crush and destroy an army of a hundred, no matter who composed them – and certainly a single man would not have a chance at all.

Still. It was at least somewhat consoling to find out that the man who would be escorting us to Riverdale was about the closest thing that this world had to a genuine hero, and had not only been a Knight, but had even managed to become the Knight of Knights. And it made me eager to talk with him once again, and to get the chance to find out a little more about him.

At any rate, it would still be two or three more days until he returned. So for now, after our breakfast was done, I sat around the house and read for a while, before training in the lower floors of the dungeons. Praxa was on guard duty for the day, and I’d promised her that the two of us would get up to the 50th floor together, so I didn’t want to go any further quite yet. But even still, I wanted to keep training up a bit if I could, so I spent some time fighting through the monsters on my own.

Once I was done, I headed back in towards Westfall. Praxa and I had agreed to meet up in the evening after she had gotten off from work, and so I headed out towards the marketplace to wait for her. She thought that she might have to work for an extra half hour or so that night, but I figured that I could hang around the market place for a while, and look through the shops before she arrived.

I had just begun to browse through a couple of the swords for sale, when I suddenly felt that something was off, somehow. The chatter of the crowd was dying down, and there was something of an unusual silence in the marketplace at that moment, which I hadn’t ever experienced before. There was also a great fluttering of wings, and a great amount of chirping, as if many of the birds around the city had just been disturbed by something.

And then, I heard what sounded like… flutes, I thought.

A lot of flutes, coming from the woods outside of the town – and soon, horns too, blaring out into the air.

At first, I wasn’t able to accept what was happening. But then, a woman next to me began to scream, as the guards along the wall beat their gongs, and yelled for us to assemble.

Even though we had another week and a half of protection from the City of the Blue Tower…

… it seemed that was not enough to protect us. For now, the battle for the town of Westfall was right about to begin.