It was a quiet morning in the partially constructed L.F.T.O base, at this point, almost everyone was present at the location.

The bit of nightly fog stirred in the breeze as the desert became ironically cold.

Crown sat cross-legged outside the door to the main building.

She was staring at the grass intensely.

"Go on you bastard!" she thought staring at the withered strand of grass that stood in the field of healthy green grass.

"Heal!" she thought but the grass didn't budge.

Suddenly she heard the door behind her creaking open.

Crown looked back and saw Bromy tip-toeing out of the base backwards, he was carrying a suitcase.

Every move he made was cautious and quiet.

He turned around and was face with Crown.

"What are you doing...?" she asked.

Bromy jumped.

He grabbed his chest.

"Christ, woman, don't scare me like that!" he said breathing heavily.

"Are... you feeling ok?" she asked.

"Y-yeah, I got an invitation somewhere and I didn't want to wake you guys up," he said awkwardly.

"Or at least I should have received one..."

Crown squinted.

"That's not a 'you' thing to do..." she remarked.

He breathed a sigh.

"I'm going off to see the druid council," he explained.

"Every year they send me a letter of invitation which I proceed to ignore, but since we don't have a mailbox and I feel like checking up on them, I decided to go visit the council," he explained.

Crown's eyes widened in surprise.

"Wait, this game has a druid council?!" she demanded.

"...you didn't get an invitation?" Bromy asked.

"No...?" she replied uncertainly.

"On, that's right, your username was a symbol so mail directed to you never worked!" Bromy realised.

He placed his hands on his hips, satisfied with his detective work,

"Anyway, I'll be off,"

He began walking away.

"Sure," Crown shrugged.

She looked back down to the piece of grass and saw that Bromy's presence caused it to grow to twice its size.

Her eyes darted back up to him,

"Hey! Wait up!" she exclaimed.

"What is it?" he asked.

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"Take me with you!" she demanded.

"..."

"I dunno... it's just a long, boring meeting..." he continued.

"That's fine! I need to get better as a druid!" she replied.

"During the raid, I barely managed to keep up with the healing, plus you're not even a healing-type druid and you did way better than me!" she exclaimed.

Bromy let out a sigh.

"Fine, usually I take Kevin as my guest, since he's out in Ajuan, I guess I can take you..." Bromy relented.

Bromy enabled his friends-list communication.

"Hey, Kevin..." he began speaking into the distance.

"Bromy?" asked Kevin from the other side.

"What did you do!?"

Bromy sighed.

"Nothing, nothing, I'm just calling to let you know I'm taking someone else to the druid meeting... " he explained.

"So you finally decided to attend!" Kevin exclaimed.

"Yeah, I wanted to check up on them, you know..." Bromy shrugged.

"Yeah, don't worry about it, I'm busy in the lab anyway, hehehehe..."

Bromy squinted.

"What's with the evil laughter?"

Kevin hung up.

"...that's ...a problem for future Bromy to deal with..." Bromy mumbled as he turned towards the desert.

"Let's get going, the meeting's probably about to start..." Bromy said walking into the open desert.

Crown followed him.

"So, where is this meeting taking place?" Crown inquired.

Bromy shrugged.

"Who knows..." he replied.

"What do you mean? Where are we going?" she asked.

Bromy gestured towards the pool of water in the distance.

He walked up to it and began casting a spell.

"Moomglade, portal!" he exclaimed as the water in the pond swirling around.

"What is that spell!? I'm sure that's not a druid spell!" she remarked.

"It's a trainable spell - in other words, you have to go to Moomglade to buy the spell to get there!" Bromy explained.

"I can only use it once a week, it costs most of my mana and it takes thirty seconds to cast..." Bromy explained.

The water began to glow as from beneath the waves came an image.

"Let's go!" Bromy exclaimed jumping into the water, he opened his eyes in a massive forest of trees that seemed like skyscrapers, giant mushrooms and strange, naturally occurring patterns in the grass, spirals, squares and other similar shapes.

Through it ran a road, but not stone or dirt, instead it was a half of a tree-trunk, hollowed out and flattened on the bottom.

The zone seemed artificially lit, it was filled with blue-green light and a slight fog in the distance.

Suddenly, Crown appeared, she washed up on the shore of the massive lake at the centre of the zone.

She walked up to Bromy who was standing on the wooden roads, they spawned only a few meters apart.

"What... is this place? It looks like a bad LSD trip but organic..." she remarked.

Bromy shrugged,

"Close, it was PCP," Bromy explained.

"No wonder the devs did this..." Crown remarked, she was referring to the game isekai thing as a whole.

Bromy scratched his head.

"Yeah, it's weird how the dev-book they advertised for like... a day, kept a diary of any substance consumed during the production of each map..."

They proceeded to walk up the road to a small town, it had no more than a dozen homes.

The town was built over several islands, joined by bridges.

"I'm going to the inn first," Bromy said before lighting a cigarette.

"You'd think druids would have a no-smoking rule in place..." Crown thought.

Bromy stepped into the inn, it looked pretty normal, inside were shelves of alcohol and various people enjoying their drinks.

"..."

The room went silent as Bromy stepped into it,

People put their drinks down.

The music stopped being played.

The man behind the till eye Bromy.

"I'M BACK YOU BASTARDS!" Bromy exclaimed.

"BROMY!" cheered a few members, a few of them stood up to meet Bromy in person.

"And who's the frog?" asked the barkeep, a large balding man.

"This is Crown, she's a druid..." Bromy explained.

"You're bringing a druid with you?" asked the barkeep.

"Abby is going to gut you..." the barkeep said with a look of pity.

"Don't worry about it! I'm sure we'll reach a reasonable c-" he was cut off when a dagger was slid into his side.

With a twitching Brow, Bromy removed the dagger and proceeded with the healing.

"..."

"Abigail... could you perhaps no-" he was skewered with a few more daggers.

Out from the back of the inn came out an ogress, she was clad in robes which barely hit humongous muscles.

When creating female-ogres, players usually went one of two ways, either A; minimize the damage and leave them as low as possible, or B; twelve-pack and calf muscles thick enough to chop trees.

"Why would you bring a druid here now of all times, dumbass!?" she demanded.

Bromy stood up, his passive healing pushing the daggers out.

"Violent as ever I see..." Bromy remarked.

On her back was a basket of daggers she threw around like confetti.

Abby pinched the bridge of her nose.

"You ditch us for years and now..." she clenched her fists.

Bromy felt a chill run down his spine.

"Alright, Bromy... why on earth would we want another member in the council?"

"Another member?!" Crown thought.

"N-no, you got the wrong idea, she just wanted to tag along as my guest!" Bromy explained.

"..." Abby looked at him uncertainly for a few seconds before letting out a sigh.

"Fine..." she sighed.

The entire inn breathed sighs of relief.

"So, what brings you here?" she asked.

"I just came to check on you guys, see if there is anything important news-wise... and to update my mailing address..."

"Did you leave your island of pity?" asked someone in the back, a green-furred wolfman.

Bromy's brow twitched as he forced a smile.

"Yes, for your information I've been away from the island for several months already..." Bromy said almost smugly.

"Seriously?!" Abby asked.

Bromy nodded.

"Well, I was dragged out by an old guild-friend, an annoying undead and at the time a vampire..." Bromy shrugged.

"So you finally stopped occupying Diasole!?" asked the barkeep.

Bromy nodded.

Crown was watching this whole meeting awkwardly.

"Well, I guess you guys are here at either a great or a terrible time..." Abby said.

"What do you mean?" asked Bromy.

"The tournament, we're finding new arch-druids, if you're interested..." Abby looked at Bromy.

He shrugged.

"Nah, too much paperwork..." he admitted,

The entire inn let out a few laughs.

Abby looked to Crown next.

"Now, about you..." her expression grew threatening.

Crown also felt a chill run down her spine, she didn't want to get stabbed.

"Well, as long as you behave, you're free to have a look around the town, I'm sure you'd find something useful as a druid," Abby relented.

"T-thanks!" Crown said nervously.

"We'll be holding the meeting after the tournament, which will be tomorrow," Abby added.

Abby then looked to Bromy.

"I should let you know...-" she began but decided against continuing.

"Nevermind... I'll see you two at the old arena in the north-west," Abby said turning to leave and returning to an ungodly amount of paperwork, the main reason she didn't want any more members of the council.

Bromy looked confused.

"What was she going to say?" he thought.