I leave the spinner’s cottage and keep an eye open for signs of my friends. I’m not sure if it’s a worrisome sign or not that they hadn’t returned to be waiting for me when I got done with the spinner’s story. Honestly, I have no idea how long I was even in there. I can see what Floaty Leaf Man meant by time being a funny thing sometimes.

Before heading down to the Labyrinth, I spot a Skyshard on top of a nearby ridge. Once I’ve absorbed that, I also spot my friends, and go to meet up with them for debriefing/storytime.

“A talking statue asked if we could read,” Eran says. “And for some reason, reading this book required going through the maze. So we’ve spent most of the time you were in there following floating letters around.”

“And since we are not idiots, we wrote the book down into a more convenient reading method,” Merry says, passing me a notebook. “Though unfortunately, this copy does not have the effect that allows traversing the Labyrinth.”

“We checked afterward and discovered we couldn’t even get into the middle rings,” Gelur says.

“Except for climbing,” Ilara adds. “And the walls have lots of vines.”

“Technically cheating, I’m sure, but who cares?” Eran says with a snicker. “It’s quite scenic and all, but the only thing in there is a gazebo.”

“Cheating would have been if there were invisible walls on top, no?” Ilara says.

“And who would bother expending the magicka for that just to protect a gazebo?” Merry adds.

“Did you have to fight anything?” I ask.

They shake their heads. Gelur says, “It was surprisingly peaceful but very enlightening.”

I read the book they compiled. It tells the story of a boy named Ostion, who had the same sort of earth magic Ari has and wound up becoming the Wilderking.

Some way from the Labyrinth, near a stone bridge, we run across two old Bosmer men, one of which is laying upon a bedroll on the ground. He doesn’t look too well. I give him some Restoring Light, and Gelur casts her healing spells. The old Bosmer doesn’t really look any better than he did when we started, and Gelur shakes her head.

“It’s just old age, not injury or sickness,” Gelur says. “There’s very little we can do.”

I know the Telvanni wizards have spells that can extend their lifespan, but that’s not normal restoration magic. Rumor had it that it involves necromancy. Either way, that’s not useful since all I know is that it’s possible, not actually how to do it. It has been a long time since I’ve had to care about that sort of thing.

“Thank you for your kindness, though, travelers,” the old Bosmer says. “It has at least eased some old aches and pains.”

The other man explains that they’d come here to see some flowers before they died, but there’s no flowers here now and they ask us to go find some seeds. I readily agree to keep an eye out.

Across the bridge is another wayshrine, which I light. The road up from there, though… fire. I can see what the spinner meant by a trail of destruction. Fires are burning along the road and it’s not hard to tell which way an earth mage and a fire mage went.

Floaty Leaf Man appears near the wayshrine to speak with us. He tells us he’s dying and that he wants Ari to succeed him and we’re going to need to kick the ass of the fire mage racist bandit she’s with. That we can absolutely do.

The path is littered with imps and living statues. (“The Hollow” Merry calls them, which is kind of a silly name unless they’re not solid.) Within the ruins, we even run across some lovely blue flowers, but we don’t really have time to collect seeds and just make a note of where they are so we can stop by on the way back.

The trail winds up and up, and we cross the river again over a bridge between a pair of waterfalls. The ruins up here may have well been part of a high elven town at some point, but is now being reclaimed by the forest.

The Wilderking appears again inside the ruin of the largest building, where a hole in the ground leads into a tunnel. As he speaks about Ari, I remember the look of defiance on her face when I persuaded her to turn her back on the Veiled Heritance, even if that didn’t actually happen.

The tunnels are full of spriggans and imps attacking anything in sight. We emerge from it on the hill above the ruins, the ground scorched with powerful fire magic leaving behind charred bushes and dead grass.

Up the path, Ari stands before another tunnel entrance, exhausted and having paused to catch her breath. When she sees us approach, recognition dawns in her eyes.

“Neri!” she exclaims. “And you brought new friends? I am so glad to see you, my old friend.”

“I’m glad to see you too, Ari,” I say. “What happened here?”

“It was Andur,” Ari says. “You were right about the Veiled Heritance. They’re nothing but racist thugs who seek to destroy anything that’s different from them. Andur came here with fire in his fists and hatred in his heart.” She frowns. “What happened that day? I could swear that I refused to join and attacked High Kinlady Estre, but it’s all a blur and I remember joining up with them instead.”

“When you wouldn’t do what they wanted, they brainwashed you,” I say, the excuse I’d come up with on the way here in case she noticed the plot holes. “They used magic to erase your memories. Anything to make you into a good little slave.”

Ari scowls. “They did what? How dare they!”

“I’m glad you remember me again, though,” I add. “We’ll take the fight to Andy. He won’t get away with this.”

Ari nods. “I could feel the land’s pain when he burned the forest. Like I’m connected to this place.”

“Like on Silatar, when you could feel the vineyards burning and the boots of bandits?” I ask.

“Yes! Exactly that.”

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

“Oh, I found out the Veiled Heritance staged that attack, too,” I add another lie, or at least speculation I’m pretending is certainty. “They hoped nobody would think too hard on why a bunch of bandits would bother to go that far out of their way to attack your little island.”

No more time to waste on spinning my own story about what ‘really’ happened.

And this is the point where I’m going to pretend that I was completely awesome here and accomplished this task without dying. Oh, who am I fooling. I don’t think much of Andur’s fires and the fact that the tunnel is wall-to-wall flames gives me no pause, so I charge right in. As it turns out, Andur is a much better fire mage than I had given him credit for. Also, burning to death sucks.

After running back up from the wayshrine, I find my friends have managed to put out the fire (mostly Merry with an ice staff, not his strongest element but sufficient).

“Neri, do we really need to tell you not to stand in the fire?” Merry asks in exasperation as I collect my gear.

My weapon is undamaged, my pack singed but intact, and my clothes are hopeless.

“Damn, I’m going to need to get new clothes,” I say, looking in my pack. “Oh, wait, no, there’s still four more sets of laundry I stole from bandits in here. Never mind.” I put on another set from my pack quickly and we continue on.

The next tunnel comes out at a dizzying height above the top of the falls and there’s an incredible view of Greenshade from up here. And that’s where I meet my second stupid death of this venture in falling off a cliff. I’m glad Ari had gone up ahead and isn’t watching this. She’d probably be freaking out at this point. Instead of freaking out that everyone is waiting to attack Andy.

“For fuck’s sake, Neri, don’t fall off cliffs,” Eran says when I catch back up to them.

“Sorry,” I say. “There was a nice view and I’m easily distracted.”

“Hopefully we’re not too late,” Gelur says. “We’ve cleared out the imps, Hollow, and spriggans, at least, but Andur’s still ahead.”

Andur is trying to burn down a magical shield protecting the Wilderking, which still appears to be holding, if barely. I charge in with Dumzy in hand. Andy’s one hell of a fire mage, but Gelur’s on top of her game and stands to keeping us healed and Merry focuses on defensive spells to keep those flames off of us. After a gruesome battle, we emerge victorious.

The Wilderking is weak, and Aranias hurriedly gets him to the tower where his throne sits. I don’t know what good that will do, but we follow. Maybe it’s got something that can recharge him. My friends decide to wait outside, and Merry jokingly says he’ll set up spells to catch me in case I manage to fall off the tower. Of course he’s joking, because Merry always jokes about everything.

When I get inside, the Wilderking is sitting on a throne. It’s hard to tell underneath the bark skin, but I get the impression that he’s very tired from just his posture. He tells me about how he’s ready to pass on the mantle of Wilderking to a new young earth mage.

“So Ari will become the Wilderking now?” I ask. “Or queen, I guess.”

“She has to accept it willingly before she can become the Wilderqueen,” he says. “You’ll need to help her through the process. You can find her up the tower.”

“Okay, so go upstairs—er, up-ladder—and throw words of encouragement at her,” I say. “That I can do.”

I give a short bow to the Wilderking before climbing up the ladder to find Ari. She stands on a balcony with a really great view of Greenshade. Down on the ground, Merry looks up at me with a meaningful scowl.

“I’m not going to jump off, guys,” I say. “Relax.”

Merry does not relax. Fine.

“Are you doing alright, Ari?” I ask. “This is the sort of thing that no one can ever truly be prepared for.”

Ari nods distantly. “I know what I’m meant to do. I’m scared—terrified, really. I’m afraid of losing myself. Will I even know who I am anymore?”

I shake my head. “Ari, the only time you ever lost yourself was when racist bandits forced you to be one of them. When they made you a killer and tried to fill you up with nothing but hate and rage. That wasn’t you. This is you. This is you, and you stand like a little scrib about to mature into a glorious and beautiful kwama queen.”

Ari can’t help but grin at that. “You know, most people would have made that metaphor about caterpillars and butterflies.”

I grin back at her. “Would you rather be something delicate, light, and pretty, or a something powerful and mighty that shapes the earth around her?”

“When you put it like that…” Ari says. “What about my memories, though? It might not have been much of a life, but it was mine. And I don’t want to forget you. You were my closest friend, but even that feels more like a dream now than anything else.”

“You won’t forget me,” I assure her. “I’m pretty unforgettable. But if you do, I will remind you. I’m not planning on going anywhere. I mean, I probably am going places, but I’m also planning on coming back, too. We might have been born elsewhere, but Valenwood’s my home now too and I won’t abandon it.”

Ari tells me that she’s ready, and we complete the ritual, although there isn’t much left to do. She has me place a wooden crown adorned with leaves in a garden high up in the tower which is a very odd place to put a garden but whatever. Once that is done, I meet up with her again, but I hardly recognize her now.

Aranias has changed. Like the Wilderking, who was once a mortal mage like her, her body has transformed into bark clad in sparkly leaves. And she’s still somehow beautiful.

“There are many problems in the forest,” Ari says. “More than just the handful of Orcs that were cutting down trees near Bramblebreach.”

I’m sure my eyes figuratively light up at that. “Oooh, things to do? I can help! What needs to be hit where?”

A grin spreads across the bark face. “I had a feeling you might say that.” She lifts her hands, and leaves come together forming a sort of green paper. Lines spread across it like veins and symbols dot it, many of them black with a few of them white. “Here. Take this. It is a map of Greenshade, marked with locations that might be of interest to you. They are marked in black if I’ve detected trouble there, and will turn white once that trouble has been taken care of.”

I take it and look over it. There’s an awful lot of trouble in Greenshade. I spontaneously hug her tightly. (Yep, I’ve become a tree hugger.) “Thank you so much. This is awesome! I’m going to go solve every single problem in Greenshade.”

Ari laughs at that but doesn’t push me away. “I should be the one thanking you. All these things are like itches and aches, but it may be a while before I am strong enough to repel them on my own, and dealing with them will help me gain strength.”

“Well, if you don’t remember me as your old friend, you can at least remember me as the guy who solves all your problems for you,” I say.

I feel like this whole exercise was as much for me as it was for her. The Wilderking couldn’t have known that I apparently have a weakness for powerful golden ladies whose names start with A. But I want to smack him anyway for making me fall for her and then taking her away. Maybe it’s just as well. At least now we can build—or grow—something that isn’t based on a lie. This isn’t really farewell but I bid her a “see you around”.

“I’m jumping off the tower now,” I call down.

“Go right ahead,” Merry yells back dryly.

Jumping off of things when someone is there to catch you with magic isn’t quite as fun as breaking your bones and having to heal yourself. Wait, no, I got those backwards, didn’t I.

“Thanks,” I say, then pause to take one look back up at the tower before we go.

The Wilderqueen smiles down at me one last time before fading into fluttering leaves, and then she’s gone.

“Let’s go,” I say quietly.

We make our way slowly back through the ruins. Merry brings out his ice staff again and makes sure to put out anything that’s still burning along the way. The ice will melt quickly, and new growth will follow in the wake of the flames. All Andy really accomplished in the end was ensuring the rebirth of the forest.

A book titled *The Wilderking Legend *lays on the floor in one of the ruined buildings. I pick it up, though I don’t feel like reading it just now. I very, very carefully do not fall off the cliff again.

On the way down, we collect some seeds from the flowers the Bosmer men by the bridge mentioned, careful to avoid damaging the plants in the process. When we finally make our way back there, though, the one who had been laying down has expired.

“We found those seeds you wanted,” I say. “Sorry we took so long. The time of the Wilderking has also come to an end, and a new Wilderqueen has risen in his place. I’m sure both she and your husband will appreciate us planting them.”