“You think he’s telling the truth?” Fortus asked after Lolo brought her team in to listen to Tamkhee repeat his statement.

“I wouldn’t have brought you guys in if I thought he was lying.”

Fortus nodded. “Standig, you heard both testimonies, what do you think?”

“I hate to admit it, but I think Tamkhee is at least telling us what he believes is true.”

“Didn’t the Great Owl say that this war was being caused by a council dissident or primordial evil or whatever you want to call them?” Ulana reminded everyone. “Who’s to say that those primordials can’t also have some sort of ultimate? The corporealization of lost souls?! That sounds kind of like an evil ultimate to me.”

Jadu seemed lost in thought.

“Jadu?” Fortus prompted.

“Give me a minute.” Jadu closed his eyes and seemed to be concentrating.

“What is it?” Lolo asked when he returned to the conversation.

“The Blue Dragon wanted to speak with me.”

“Really?! That’s new. What did he say?”

“He said that his twin brother would be capable of something like what Tamkhee was describing.”

“The Black Dragon?”

Jadu nodded.

“Has the Blue Dragon seen his brother use this sort of power before?”

“Yes. The corporealization power is how the dissidents have been returning to the world periodically to try and destroy mankind.”

“How so?”

“Their primordial spirits are able to return as an animal spirit if they can find compatible hosts during windows of opportunity in which the Black Dragon’s power is activated.” Jadu saw the confusion on everyone’s faces. “I’m not explaining it well.”

“Well, no. What you said makes sense, sort of, but does that mean that the ancient primordial spirits are always around? And the evil ones are always on the prowl for compatible hosts to infiltrate in case that window of opportunity arises?” Fortus mused out loud.

“What I can’t wrap my head around is why they’d even bother. Do they really hate humans that much?” Lolo posited. “What do they hope to gain?”

“And what I’d like to know is, if the corporealization power brings the primordial evils back, what brings us back?” Standig asked.

“I felt like, from our group meditation, the Dragon King anticipated the need for our primordial spirits to return and combat the dissidents. I’m sure he provided that power to us,” Ulana said.

“Like, he made their successful return a sort of trigger for our return?” Standig asked.

“I guess so,” Ulana shrugged.

“Guys, do you think there’s maybe a way to completely destroy a primordial spirit?” Fortus asked.

“What do you mean?” Lolo was taken aback.

“Well, if the Black Dragon’s corporealization ultimate is what keeps bringing the dissidents back, destroying him, his primordial spirit, would completely eliminate the need for our own primordial spirits to return ever again. We could end all dissident-caused disasters here and now with this one mission.”

“Jadu, does the Blue Dragon think that the Dragon General is host to his twin brother’s primordial spirit?” Lolo clarified.

Jadu nodded. “That’s what I understood.”

The team looked around at each other blankly.

“So,” Ulana proceeded with caution, “if we can figure out how to completely destroy, not only the Dragon General, but also his animal spirit, our mission could be the mission to end all missions?”

“Yeah,” Fortus looked burdened.

“No pressure,” Standig said, finding it necessary to sit down on a nearby rock.

“No pressure,” Ulana echoed.

***

"Philige, please wake up." It had been six days since the battle, and Huo Lohse was beyond exhausted. After meeting with Tamkhee that morning and the various committees all afternoon and her team that evening to revisit Tamkhee and discuss his statement, it was now time to meditate. She couldn't tell if passing Philige her energy was even helping anymore, but she didn't care. It was something that she could do, so she felt that it was something that she should do.

Standig couldn't be in the room while Lolo put herself through the energy transfer every night. It hurt just to watch. Inevitably she ended up choking on her own blood at some point during the process. But he couldn't stop her either, and he too was anxious to see Philige recover.

Jadu's antidote was making minimal progress, but it was making progress. For the handful of soldiers with only minor poisoning, the antidote could help their body flush the poison out of their systems. For more severe cases like Philige’s, it only seemed to prolong the inevitable.

“At this point, I’m guessing,” Jadu tried to explain. “I can’t heal what I don’t understand. And I can’t get a clean enough sample of the poison for proper evaluation.”

“And using your ultimate doesn’t help?” Lolo asked.

“The poison has spread to their entire bodies. My blue fire works well to heal a single, isolated wound, or even two or three such wounds, but I don’t have the energy to heal someone’s entire body all at once. And if I can’t get all of the poison out, the poison will simply spread again.”

“If you can get enough out, could your antidote flush out the rest?”

Jadu sighed. “Lolo, I’m doing my best. My ultimate has limits. It can’t revive the dead, heal an entire body, remove old scars, or reverse blood loss. It can help me make diagnoses and heal localized problems, even if they are quite serious.”

Lolo bit her lip. “Can your blue fire isolate the poison in a localized area and remove it for a proper investigation?”

That was a theory that Jadu hadn’t even considered. “What an interesting idea. I don’t know if that’s possible or not. I’ve been working with the dirty weapons we picked up off of dead soldiers, but a clean sample of the poison would absolutely help.”

“So it’s worth a try?!”

“I need to meditate first, so I’ll try first thing tomorrow and let you know how it goes.”

As was becoming the norm, Huo Lohse struggled to sleep that night and ended up squishing next to Philige on his cot in a desperate effort to at least relax. She had finally managed to start drifting off about the same time Standig shook her shoulder to tell her that she needed to get back up again.

With her body hyped up on adrenaline just to get moving, Lolo was extra shaky as she walked into The Great Hall to start her day of meetings with the two committees working on construction projects.

“Bear Queen, we have some good news!”

“I could use some good news,” Lolo smiled sleepily.

“Erbar has used the extra man-power from the military to complete five home clusters in a matter of days. The families displaced by the dragons’ march have all accepted homes in one of the clusters and feel safer for its location deeper in our territory. Erbar has reported that with another week and a half working with the military, he can complete the rest of the currently planned housing clusters.”

“That is good news, well done! Do we need to plan more housing to meet demand?”

“As you know, we’ve been accepting new housing applications now that people are feeling anxious in the aftermath of the battle. To fulfill all of the requests, we will need to plan five more clusters, and we are working to gather enough applications to justify a sixth. Each cluster is about fifty homes large. When we hit thirty applications, we can justify the next build.”

“Prepare a minimum of six site proposals for tomorrow. Thank you! Who has the report for the Trading Post committee?”

A tall, slender elder stood up to give her report. “We’ve been looking into relocating the trading post to a site just southeast of the Leader’s Lodge to make it more defensible but still easily accessed by travelling merchants. We’ve been working with an architect to implement some design changes that will include a large central square with space for temporary merchants to sell their wares and a collection of permanent structures for artisans and local merchants to live and set up shop. We’ve scouted out a site that has relatively flat terrain to work with and room to expand should that be needed in the future.”

“Can I see your site proposal and design plans?”

A stack of papers was passed to Standig so he could hand them to Lolo for inspection.

“This is an excellent start. Make sure in the design that there is room for carts and people to move from one end to the other and turn around safely without creating an obstacle. And I’d like to propose for your committee’s consideration that the permanent structures for shops and such only be built on the north and south sides of the square. That will make expansion much easier in the future. I’d also like to see the artistry of the Bear Tribe represented somehow in the square. Perhaps in the architecture? But we may want to commission some local artists as well. Concerning the proposed location, I believe I know where this site is located, but I’d like to see it for myself before I approve it.”

“I’d be happy to show it to you,” the reporting elder smiled.

“Let’s go, then! I have some time before my next meeting.”

Standig and Lolo followed the council elder to the proposed site. The site for the new trading post was almost perfect with a beautiful view of the valley below and a very large natural terrace in the mountain side with good vegetation on the slopes both above and below it to prevent erosion and rockslides from damaging the potential build. From the foot of the mountain, the lights of the trading post would be visible in this location which appealed to Lolo.

“We’re going to need to build a good network of roads with gentle slopes to get to and from this location, but I think this will work wonderfully. Have you gotten feedback from the locals yet?”

“Yes. This is one of five sites that we scouted out. We presented the sites to the merchants and artisans that have been the foundational members of the trading post and asked them to give us their first and second choices from among the options. Of the fifty-two people we interviewed, thirty-nine rated this location as their top choice while nine others listed this as their second choice.”

Lolo did some quick math in her head. “So four out of fifty-two didn’t rank this location. Did you follow-up to ask them why?”

“Three of them stubbornly insisted that we rebuild the trading post exactly as it was originally. One person chose not to participate in the survey at all, stating that where he did business didn’t matter to him as long as it was successful.”

Lolo chuckled. “So we have some traditionalists. They’ll come around eventually. What do you think, Standig?”

Standig shrugged and said lamely, “looks nice to me.”

Lolo rolled her eyes. “Elder, I’d like to propose a design idea for you to consider.”

“What’s that?”

“A large deck with railings at the edge of the terrace for site-seeing and gatherings.”

“We were already talking about a boardwalk with railings along the edge here that will span from one end of the trading post to the other, but a large central deck that connects the path to the square would be a nice feature. I’ll make a note to ask the architect what he thinks.”

“Thank you,” Lolo smiled at her.

“Lolo, where are you?” Fortus’s voice suddenly popped into her head.

“I’m looking at a potential build-site for the new trading post.”

“I have something better for you to look at....”

“Philige?!” she accidentally said out loud, drawing a funny look from the council elder, and a cautiously optimistic one from Standig.

“Yeah,” Fortus chuckled. “He woke up!”

“The site looks great! I’m so sorry to be rude, but we have to go,” Lolo explained herself quickly to the elder and took off running with Standig hot on her heels.

“Lolo, what did Fortus say?” Standig asked as they ran.

“He’s awake!”

“Where is he?'' Huo Lohse, out of breath and dizzy, asked Shanti as she and Standig barreled into the field hospital to find Philige’s cot empty.

“I think he cleaned up and went to The Great Hall,” a startled Shanti replied.

Lolo and Standig didn’t pause to exchange further pleasantries with Shanti and ran to The Great Hall to crash through the front doors, causing everyone inside to jump and turn to look at them.

Philige was standing down on the platform catching up with the elders that were in the room. For someone that had been poisoned and unconscious for nearly a week, he looked amazingly strong and healthy. Standig continued his run down the stairs to hug his brother, leaving Lolo at the top of the stairs, completely overwhelmed by her tidal wave of emotions.

“Oof!” Philige was nearly knocked over by the exuberance of Standig’s hug.

“You’re ok. How are you ok?!” Standig started stammering.

Philige just smiled at him and turned to look up at his wife, but he didn’t see her. Instead, a group of elders had formed an anxious circle at the top of the stairs. A couple of them were on their knees.