After I nestled myself deep into the maze of leaves and branches of the eximovere tree’s crown, sleep took me easily. I’d been awake for what felt like weeks at this point, and even though I felt like I could easily keep going, some human part of me insisted that I needed to sleep every now and again.

The shift into the void took place almost immediately and I started floating in the now familiar empty void, decorated only by the countless stars in the distance. A nice sight, to be sure, but I was still uncomfortable with aimlessly floating around out here after what happened. I quickly activated my skills to chart a course to Tim’s bar and started to follow the skills guidance, making sure that I didn’t deviate even a single millimeter from the path that revealed itself to me.

It took about twenty minutes of nerve-wracking travel, but eventually, the now-familiar form of the bar came into view. As always, the cheap-looking neon signs decorating the outside of the building flickered heavily and the door beckoned me to enter into the safety of the bar. I unceremoniously opened the door with a tentacle and slipped inside, relaxing as gravity took me once again.

I looked around the bar, which was pretty packed today as well, and noticed that seemingly every single voidling had stopped what they were doing and was staring at me. It was kind of hard to tell with the odd eye placement a lot of them had, but I was pretty sure they were staring. It wasn’t unusual for the patrons to check who entered, but usually that would last a second at best before they lost interest once they saw it was me. Today, though, they just kept looking at me.

I looked back at them in confusion, the staring was becoming a bit creepy by now. Was there something on my face? Did I do something wrong? A voidling in the back of the bar was the first to move, pushing back their chair and making to stand up when a sudden shout rang through the bar.

“Don’t you dare! Not in here, that counts for all of you!”

Tim was the one that had yelled, an unfamiliar anger in his voice. Everybody turned to look at him and once they saw how intimidating he looked back they started minding their own business again. Conversations started back up, drinks were drunk, and laughter filled the bar. Yet, I could feel them all following my every move as I made my way to the bar where Tim was already waiting for me, staring intensely.

“Hey Tim,” I said apprehensively as I hopped onto a free stool, practically feeling the stares digging into my back. “What was that all about? Did I do something wrong?”

“That depends on what you consider doing wrong to be,” Tim answered, all of his eyes focused on me for once. “In fact, I’d go as far as to say that you’re doing pretty good for yourself.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why does seemingly everybody in here want something from me all of a sudden?”

“It’s because of what’s in here,” one of Tim’s tentacles extended from behind the bar and poked me in the side. “We can all sense the true seed within you, and these guys want it for themselves.”

I used one eye to look at where Tim poked me and the other to swivel around the bar. Every single voidling was shooting glances my way as if I was some sort of rare animal at the zoo. “Is it really such a big deal?”

“It is,” Tim sighed and retracted his tentacle. “And you’ve made a grave mistake in coming here. Now they know, and they’ll come for what they want.”

“They seem pretty content with just looking for now…”

“For now, yes,” Tim's eyes went wild for a second as he pointedly glared at each voidling in the bar. “As long as you’re in here, you’re under my protection. They aren’t stupid enough to try something while I’m here.”

“Well, uhhh, thanks,” I nodded at Tim, glad that his mere presence was enough to keep them at bay. “You’re not interested in my seed?” I knew it was risky and dumb to ask something like this but the words left my mouth before I could think better of it.

“Technically yes, but I don’t care all that much,” Tim waved away my worries. “I already hunted more than enough true seed owners to upgrade my own a long time ago. I could, of course, take yours and sell it for a lot of points, but I make it a point not to screw over my paying customers.”

“Thanks, again,” I didn’t really know how to respond to this new revelation and ended up thanking Tim over and over again. “Mind if I ask why exactly my seed is so special that voidlings stumble over themselves to get at me as soon as they see me?”

“I swear, you travelers…” Tim muttered under his breath but didn’t finish his statement, instead launching into an explanation. “Look, I’m sure you’re aware that every voidling at some point in their life needs to care for their seed, and depending on how well they did when they finally evolve into an adult they gain a number of benefits. Most of us only get a regular seed and can at best upgrade it to the fifth tier. If you manage to get it that high, you’re already considered strong, a promising voidling in the making.

“Then, every now and again, a voidlings seed may transform into a true seed. Nobody knows the exact requirements for this to happen, and it doesn’t really matter right now. What does matter, though, is that a voidling that manages to properly nurtures a seed like that will be exponentially stronger than a normal voidling. Even if you only get it to the sixth tier before turning into an adult, you will be considered an elite even among the strong ones, not to mention if you manage to get it to the tenth tier.

“A voidling that evolves after nurturing a true seed is fundamentally different than a regular voidling. In terms of the intelligent races, you could compare them to elves and high elves, or orcs and high orcs. In a lot of ways, the same, yet, different in all the ways that count. A voidling like that is essentially nobility, even though there are no such systems in the void. Merely being a true voidling gives you many advantages and benefits in the void, and as such, everybody wants to be one. Almost no one gets the chance, though.

“But! If a normal voidling manages to kill the bearer of a true seed before they evolve into an adult and extract it, they can use the seed themselves in an attempt to evolve beyond what they are. As such, whenever a true seed voidling like you appears, a massive free for all starts until a voidling that is strong enough takes the seed and manages to defend it long enough to evolve.

I gulped as Tim finished his explanation and looked back at the bar. The voidling in here barely contained themselves, a testament to Tim’s strength. If he wasn’t here a massive brawl would break out, one of which I would most likely only witness the very start before I was ripped apart. A terrible thought, but there was one odd thing about this whole affair.

“Thank you for explaining but, shouldn’t I be safe either way, after all, it is not my real body that is here. Which should mean that, while they could kill me, the actual seed rests back in my body. Am I wrong?”

“No, no. You’re technically correct,” Tim nodded. “But, do you happen to remember that I told you that your skill, dreams of the void, is dangerous and you should get rid of it as soon as you can?”

“Yes?”

“Well, one of the many downsides the skill has, is that a determined voidling can follow your ethereal body back to your true body. And believe me, these guys are nothing but determined.”

I once again let my eyes wander, seeing many eyes looking back at me, most likely already scheming how to get at my precious seed. I really was in trouble this time… I doubted these guys were anywhere near as strong as Tim was since they all followed his rules like docile puppies, but I was sure that every voidling here could easily take me out without even trying.

“You wouldn’t be inclined to help a poor, small, little voidling in trouble out, would you?” I posed my question, hoping that Tim liked me enough to lend me even a sliver of his power. I was hardly making him any “money” compared to everybody else, so this was a long shot at best.

Tim looked at me long and hard, which meant that a whole bunch of eyes were staring down at me. “Actually, I am going to help you, but probably not in the way that you’re thinking of.”

A feeling of relief washed over me at the bartender's words. Sure, he probably wouldn’t follow me and act like my personal bodyguard, but at this point, I’d take every bit of help I could get. “Then, what kind of help can you give me?”

“Listen, you’re a paying customer. Right now you’re only a blip on the radar, but I can see you have potential. Plus, it’s never a bad idea to have a traveler on my good side,” Tim started explaining as multiple tentacles reached behind him to grab various bottles. “I’m going to mix you two drinks on the house. They’re not exactly the most expensive drinks so don’t expect them to give you phenomenal cosmic powers or anything, but they will help. Should you survive, I expect you to come back here and continue being a good patron, spending lots of your attribute points so that I don’t regret doing this. Also, you owe me one.”

“Oh yes, absolutely, I’ll come and spend like crazy if I make it through this.”

“Alright, just make sure that you don’t return before you evolve into an adult to avoid situations like this. Travelers cheat, so this probably won’t take you the fifty or so years that a voidling usually takes to grow up.” Tim’s tentacles were working overtime behind his back, grabbing bottles, throwing ingredients into mixers, cutting up materials, and whisking some mysterious substance. “You’re a traveler so you have to have some type of inventory, put this one in there.”

He put a blue swirling drink in front of me that had what looked like soap bubbles coming off the top of it, slowly floating toward the ceiling. I did as he told me and stored the drink in my inventory.

“Drink that one only if you manage to survive. It’s a potion of neversleep and once you drink it you will be unable to sleep for at least a year. Sometimes it’s longer, depending on how your body reacts to the potion. It’ll keep your dreams of the void from activating, so you better make sure to evolve. That, or find a way to get rid of the skill before the potion runs out.”

I nodded along with Tim’s explanations, impressed by the things he could brew up at such short notice. It took a little while, but soon another drink was put in front of me. This one a deep red that had an odd-looking, pulsating worm thing in it. I looked at it with a bit of apprehension until I remembered that Tim was trying to help.

“This one you should drink just before you wake up, it will boost your speed by 100% for an hour,” Tim’s tentacles started cleaning up the slight mess he had made behind himself as he continued talking. “There’s no point in fighting, as soon as you get back, you run. You run as fast and far away as you can. If you can, hide somewhere deep in a mountain or something, it will make it harder for your pursuers to locate you.”

“Thanks, really, I appreciate what you’re doing for me,” I pulled the drink a little closer, ready to down it at a moment's notice. “But do you really think I can run away? What if they relentlessly search for me?”

“Don’t worry about that too much,” Tim chuckled. “The system doesn’t like it very much when voidlings rip apart space and time to invade some random planet, I’m sure there will be some kind of intervention. You just need to make sure you survive until that happens.”

“Alright, alright, thanks again,” I sighed, nervously fidgeting around with the drink in my tentacles.

Another look at the voidlings revealed that they were quite literally at the edge of their seat. They almost couldn’t wait for me to wait up, eyeing me hungrily. All pretense had flown out the window, none of them acting like they were interested in whatever they were doing before I’d entered. The bar had gone silent and everybody was staring at me, which made me even more nervous. Some of them were giving Tim the stink eye, probably because he decided to help me out.

As soon as I disappeared from here, there was no doubt in my mind that a total frenzy would break out as they all raced to get to me before the other. I gulped and looked back at my drink, trying to think of ways to escape the pursuit that would soon start. My first thought was to run into a crater with an active eximovere tree so that anybody that followed would get bewitched. There was no guarantee that it’d work, I would probably get bewitched myself, and I didn’t even know a crater that held an active tree.

I suddenly remembered that I still hadn’t received my C-tier skill from defeating a hunter some time ago, saving the reward for a time when I needed it most. Well, this was definitely that time. I was just about to pull up the menu to look for a nice skill to get when I was disturbed by Tim.

“You should probably drink now, and, good luck out there.”

I was so absorbed in my little world that I almost didn’t notice that I was starting to fade away. The odd feeling had joined the nervous tingling all over my body and had blended in almost too nicely, making me miss the sensation. Not losing any more time I slammed the drink back, feeling it take effect almost immediately.

“Thank you. For everything.”

The last thing I saw was Tim giving me an encouraging nod, as well as about twenty voidling making a mad dash for the door.