“I don’t understand. How can the palace just be gone?”

Falynn asked the question, voicing the disbelief that they all held in their heart. They just couldn’t comprehend how a powerful family like the Ciayol clan could let something so devastating happen on their watch. They’d successfully repelled years worth of attacks, hadn’t they? Just a few years ago, in fact, the city had held strong against an invasion by Attos and his forces and emerged victorious. But now, with no whispers of war to warn them of an approaching enemy, news had flashed across the countryside of the palace’s destruction.

The new force, whoever held the city, had sent out word along the roads, claiming their victory. They held the city in force and were prepared to defend against any attempt to retake it. As far as anyone knew, the identity of the invading force was unknown. Not that it mattered to the common folk and those not employed in the military. For the ordinary person, only one thing mattered. Milagre, the city that had stood as the nerve center of the great nation of Tyrman for half a millennia, had fallen.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Falynn asked. She glanced at Leonov as if hoping for some of his quiet strength. But even he was pale and shaky like the rest of them. “If there’s no Adventurer’s Guild, what are we going to do?”

They had no answer for them and sat in silence for a few more minutes. Roni was pacing around their campsite. The news of the attack had seemed to put her on high alert, and she had barely sat down to rest since they’d heard of the city falling. Falynn thought that she was worried about Dagorra Forest being the next victim, but she knew that that wasn’t likely. A city was something you could take and hold. The forest was a wild thing with no loyalty to anything but Grimr.

Grimr, she thought. For the last week or so, she’d felt spontaneous flashes of anger in her heart at odd moments that had nothing to do with what she’d been occupied with at the time. Instinctively, she knew that the anger came from her god, the one she held the closest in her heart. Something had happened to Grimr, something that had woken an ancient anger in his heart. That, followed by the news of the city falling, had put fear in her heart, a fear that she couldn’t shake.

She hadn’t confided this discovery in the others, either. She knew what their reaction would be. Grimr Longfang was the strongest living person. There wasn’t a single thing that could cause him more trouble than he could handle. After all, there were those old legends about him and the last Guardian of nature, weren’t there? Forgotten for over a thousand years, Grimr had returned to the world to defeat his corrupted brother and take over his job. Since then, he’d ruled unchallenged as the paragon of nature.

But she knew. Deep inside, she knew that Grimr was troubled. Her family had been close to the deity for hundreds of years. Each child was trained and dedicated to his service at a young age. Even at seventeen years, Falynn knew many advanced natural magicks. She could shape wood with the lightest touch of her hand, and she could charm the heart of any beast she saw. Quite apart from her shortcomings, she was a powerful natural mage for her age. It was this connection that told her heart what she needed to do next.

“I think we should stay in the Dagorra Forest,” she said suddenly. She said it with such confidence that the others looked around at her in confusion. They hadn’t heard her so sure about something before. “I’ve been keeping something from you all, but I think that it’s connected, so I should tell you.”

And she did exactly that. She shared what she’d felt in her heart these past days and her fear for what it meant in connection to the city. They listened to her words intently, drinking everything in. By the end, even the stoic Taiki’s eyes were wide with shock. The two things had to be connected. The strongest city of Tyrman falling mere days after something happened that had shaken the strongest of the gods? It was too much of a coincidence not to be related.

“What can we do, though?” Leonov asked. He was bittersweet about it all. He’d only just gotten to the country in search of a living and some personal fame. Now that was lost. “What does the Dagorra Forest hold that everywhere else doesn’t?”

“Safety,” Falynn said, to which Leonov scoffed. She added, in a hard voice that surprised him yet again, “And an army’s worth of a powerful god’s followers.”

“But no gold,” he pointed out. The others frowned at him, and he offered them an indifferent shrug. “I’m sorry if it sounds careless, but I only came to this country to earn a lot of money. Gold and prestige, you know.”

They didn’t comment on that, falling back into their respective silences. Almost as if she didn’t want the silence to consume them, Falynn spoke again. “But there is a lot of prestige to be found in the service of a god.”

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“You think I’ll desert Attos and server your god?” Leonov asked. For a moment, his eyes flashed with anger, and his distress faded.

Falynn was quick to wave her hands in dismissal. “No, no! That’s not what I mean! I just think that you’d get a lot of value out of working for Grimr. The druids don’t care much about money, but there are more forms of wealth than coin, right?”

It was one of the first lessons that she’d been taught as a druid. A simple life was all that one needed. The kind of coin-pinching and vanity of city life wasn’t for her. At first, she’d thought that it was just her parent’s preference, their way of enforcing their chosen lifestyle on her. But after she’d grown and met several of the people from the major cities, she’d found that she preferred the simple lifestyle as well. Satisfaction and pride were easier to find if you stayed within the lines of an easy, uncomplicated life.

“So,” she continued, taking a deep breath to steady herself. “I think we should help out here and in the surrounding area. We can do some good to help the forest stay free and maybe even help the country recover.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Roni said, coming closer. To Falynn’s slight annoyance, she seemed surprised that the idea had come from the air-headed girl. “Good thought, Falynn. Plus, Leonov, think how many good jobs you’ll get when people hear that you were in the center of things fixing a countryside.”

That caught the old soldier’s attention. A slow smile spread across his face at the thought of such respect and standing, and the girls knew he was on board. For such a stoic, seemingly complicated man, it was easier than they’d expected to persuade him to their side of thinking. That just left Taiki, the one who gave away even less than the retired sergeant. They turned to look at the warrior, wondering how to best convince them. But they were surprised yet again.

“Yes, it sounds like a good idea,” Taiki said. “But I’m making one change to that plan.”

They blinked in surprise. The statement hadn’t been phrased as a question or even a hard suggestion. It was nothing other than a firm statement of the warrior’s intentions. Tentatively, Falynn took up the conversation, pulling on the new thread. “What is your proposed change?”

Taiki took their time replying. They finished the last of the food on their plate and set it aside on the log they’d been using as a seat. Then, gripping the handle of their spiked club with a firm grip, they rose to their feet. “I’m not against using the Dagorra Forest as a base for the time being. And we should absolutely do what we can to help Grimr and the druids protect the people that live here. They are innocent. But there are also innocents out there.”

With one thick gloved finger, they pointed towards the west, and they knew immediately what Taiki meant. It was Leonov that voiced it. “The escaped citizens of Milagre. They won’t have anyone to protect them outside the city.”

“They have Issho-Ni,” Taiki said. “But their numbers are down after the battle, and they need all the help they can get.”

“How do you know that?”

Taiki slid one hand under their tunic and produced a simple iron pendant. It was the wolf’s head crest of Tokugawa. Usually, the pendant was a shiny polished silver in color. But now, they were troubled to see that a small bit of rust had begun to appear on the edge. Somehow, they knew that it wasn’t due to Taiki’s lack of care for the small pendant. It was a sign of the god’s own trouble at this moment.

“Shigeru and Grimr are both troubled by this event,” Leonov said. To their surprise, he was smirking. When they looked at him in indignant confusion, he explained further. “I’m not mocking. I know of their strength. Angering both gods was a bad move. And with the city falling, the Ciayol family is probably angry as well.”

They took that in, nodding their heads in agreement. It was Roni who stated the obvious. “And Bora Bora doesn’t take attacks against his family lightly.”

She let out a quiet chuckle at the thought of the odds now stacked against their unknown enemies. She hadn’t meant to do it, but the sound escaped her anyway, and it was contagious, quickly latching onto the others. They laughed quietly, sure that, no matter what happened next, the creator of this tragedy was not in a good position. Just one powerful god was bad enough. But they’d drawn the ire of three of the strongest.

“Alright,” Leonov said, speaking for the thought they all had. “It’s only a matter of time before they fall under the weight of three god’s followers. So let’s do what we can to help the effort and earn ourselves a name.”

Falynn beamed at him, pleased that he’d come around so quickly. She jumped to her feet at once and bounced with a quiet sort of glee. It would only take them two hours to get back to Shallow Brook, where she could argue their case to her mother. She had no doubt that she could convince her family to let them help in some way. Maybe, if they did a good job, she could convince the sages of the forest to teach her some of the rarer, exclusive magicks.

“Let’s go then,” she urged the others, still bouncing on her heels. “Let’s get back to Shallow Brook and see what we can do to help.”

“Hang on,” Roni said. If there was anything she knew as a hunter, it was patience. “It will still be there at the end of the day. There’s no point in rushing. We have to stay alert.”

Falynn accepted the gentle rebuke, looking suitably chastened, and helped with the cleanup effort. They packed their campsite up quickly, and she extinguished the fire. In no time at all, they were aiming back at the forest, walking at a brisk pace. Behind them, she knew, Milagre was in enemy hands. But ahead of them was the strength of Dagorra Forest and the hope that maybe, just maybe, this could be turned around.