“Are you being serious right now?” Cassie asked once I finished telling the leadership of Apple Gate Farm about the conditions in the city. I could understand her disbelief, if somebody had told me about racoons riding formerly domesticated hogs into battle against some dogs, I would have been sceptical myself. And once I added to that idea a story about necromantic racoons able to control and guide Undead while utilising some sort of mental, magical mobile communication things just turned incredible. Literally. It sounded too absurd to be true, something from a pre-change story and yet, it turned out that truth could often be stranger than fiction.

“I could make the joke that I’m Jaded, not serious, but yes, I gave a factual report, at least factual to my knowledge. I can’t promise that every conclusion we’ve drawn from our observations is correct but the information I gave you was given in good faith, so you can prepare and plan ahead,” I focused on Mrs Wu, “Once before, I warned you of events that I had seen precursors for and, to my understanding, that warning allowed you to escape a dire threat, one that could easily have wiped you out. Or at least done great damage to your people and severely limited the chances of your collective survival.”

“Yes, I remember,” Mrs confirmed my words, letting out a long, drawn-out sigh, “She was the one who realised that the countless dead would rise as Undead at some point. She warned me, told me to prepare and get my people out, that it wasn’t just disease from decomposing bodies that we had to worry about but a more personal danger. That the dead wouldn’t just remain dead but would rise. We warned you about that, we had you prepare, Cassie. The warning we gave you came from her,” she continued and I could watch Cassie turn rather pale at the realisation.

“What do you think we should do?” Mark asked, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I will have to admit uncertainty. The easy answer would be to ignore the situation, to hope that the racoons and the Shattered decimate each other. As I have mentioned, the Shattered seem to control the Undead just like the racoons do and I’ve not seen overlap. The Undead are either controlled by Shattered or Undead with similar eyes as the racoons, making me think there’s a connection between those two. Either way, with two competing factions, for lack of a better word, conflict is nearly inevitable,” I reasoned, already noticing the frowns on multiple faces. They could easily see where that idea would go.

“But you undoubtedly see the problem. Racoons and Shattered fight, maybe until one side is wiped out, but what then? It is not just people who gain levels, everything can. If we let the Shattered and Racoons fight it out, whichever side wins will have a massively higher level and an army of Undead, many with high levels themselves,” I shook my head, making it obvious what I thought of that scenario.

“Cassie, remember what I managed to do as Morgana, my level at the time was only around hundred-sixty,” I looked at the cleric, managing to keep my lips from curling up, “Certainly, what I accomplished was only possible due to certain quite fortunate conditions, but regardless of those, I could cause massive destruction, simply due to the power of my magic. Levels matter,” I let that sink in for a moment, before continuing, “But that’s neither here nor there. It’s not so much about the things a decently levelled spellcaster can do, at that level everyone has some rather insane tricks up their sleeves, but it’s about the risk to let the racoons and Shattered duke it out. People need to get their levels up, at least those willing to fight. And those unwilling or unable need to contribute themselves, but I’m sure you already knew that.” I stopped my rambling, noticing an amused expression on multiple faces.

“Just a few days ago, you warned about going into the city because we’d get mobbed by the Undead. Now, you are essentially suggesting we do what you warned us away from,” Mr Wong asked, not so much sceptical but curious whether I had a solution for the problem.

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“The situation changed. It’s one thing to let one faction keep control of an area that they don’t truly exploit. It wasn’t as if I had observed Shattered infighting in an attempt to make one, or a few, of them supremely powerful. No, I simply observed them wandering about, occasionally crossing paths but no aggression, no additional devastation, nothing that suggested they would become more powerful over time,” I paused for effect once more.

“That changed when I noticed the Undead controlled by those with green-glowing eyes. Whether the Undead control the racoons and use them as a sort of scout squad or if the racoons are controlling the Undead, it matters little. Either way, a war between Shattered and Racoons would, amusingly, be devastating for the people here, at least in the long run.” I finished, getting nods all around.

“I suppose that is fair. You would have people attack both sides, trying to keep them in a stalemate as long as possible, their forces grinding against each other while we can increase the level and number of our people,” Mr Wong reasoned, getting a nod of approval from me. It was the most obvious idea, but that didn’t mean it was a bad one. Not unless our enemy was able to figure out what we did and counter it. Sadly, we didn’t know just how intelligent the racoons were, how much of a strategic interest and mind they had.

“It is a possibility, but given that the racoons were actively trying to encircle us last night, I’d advise caution. This is no game, mistakes cost lives,” I reminded them, getting an unwillingly amused snort from Cassie.

“That from Morgana? I didn’t see that one coming,” Cassie snarked, before turning red and covering her mouth with her hand.

“Can somebody fill me in on what Morgana did? It has been hinted at but nobody ever told me,” Mark griped, sounding a little annoyed.

“Early during our time on Mundus, when everyone thought it was just a game, I came across an incredibly interesting item. It sent me on a quest around the world, one that I barely managed to complete due to quite a few detours. It was a massive task with appropriate results. I gained access to things that would normally be impossible to access, even for the people of Mundus. Or maybe especially for the people of Mundus, now that I think about it,” I shrugged, “Either way, by completing that quest, I changed the global climate,” Mark just blinked at me, staring in disbelief.

“And that was a realistic world?” Arlan asked, looking a little green around the gills.

“To the best of our knowledge, yes. Moral of the story, don’t let your doomsday artefacts lying around where somebody below my current level can reach and just take them,” I grinned, enjoying the looks of surprise I was getting.

“Second moral of the story, even the Gods can make mistakes. They left the artefact where I found it, virtually unguarded. They, too, make mistakes, just like we do. Only, their mistakes have far greater consequences,” I let that idea sink in, noticing a worried expression on Cassie’s face. Only, I wasn’t sure if she was worried that I was undermining some sort of scheme on her part or if she only now realised that divine didn’t mean omniscient and certainly not omnipotent or omnibenevolent. They, too, made mistakes. And if they did, Worlds could die.

“I believe this is enough on that,” Mr Wong interjected, breaking the tense atmosphere apart. “What happened in another world is irrelevant, especially now. We need to focus on keeping alive, on making sure that we can keep going once the things we looted in town run out Enemies might kill us, but hunger certainly will.”

“I agree. We will either stand together or fall divided, I believe that is the expression. Samantha has helped many of our people a great deal, both directly and indirectly,” Mrs Wu interjected, “She has just given us a warning about a growing threat, we needed to know about, allowing us to prepare. I, for one, am grateful for what she did. She has never made a secret of her dislike of crowds, she has been that way long before this all began. I would suggest we focus on ways to combat the coming threat, instead of getting our priorities all twisted up.”

Mrs Wu’s words were enough to completely finish any discussion about me. Our discussion continued, making me glad that I had decided to visit Apple Gate Farm on the way back, in order to check out their new security. The only problem was, I would have to spend the day here.

Letting out a soft sigh, I focused on the discussion at hand. There was a lot of work to be done and there were countless Undead to destroy.