When people left Seruatis it was usually with fanfare, possibly even a parade. Usually when people left Seruatis it was so they could die in a grand adventure but not this time.

The two figures, one notably taller and broader than the other, and that was about all that could be made out in the darkness, vaulted the wall in silence and slipped into the forest. It was vitally important they weren’t noticed, at least until morning.

They made good time. Within an hour they’d covered five miles, and if that seemed unimpressive to an observer it was because they’d never had to try and run through a forest at night. Or they were a nigh-immortal being who could run at speeds that the human eye would interpret as little more than a blur.

As the two stepped into a clearing they’d find it already occupied.

“You weren’t actually going to leave without saying goodbye were you?” The Eternal Swordsman asked, leaning casually against a tree trunk, a glowstone in his hand to cast azure light across the clearing to reveal his companion, a hooded woman sat amongst the roots of an elderly oak, who had apparently gotten quite far into a book, somehow reading in the pitch black. Alisha gave them both a quiet nod and got back to her reading.

With a sigh the fleeing duo lowered their hoods, not that Agh’zak’s had done much to conceal his identity, even in Seruatis there were only so many people over seven foot tall, and at least half of those were dragons. The massive orc had his arms folded as he glared at the man.

Saiko at least had the decency to look embarrassed under the stern gaze of his mentor. “I left a note?”

“I know.” The great patriarch of Seruatis told him bemusedly, “I watched you write it.”

“Oh.” The mercenary began an in-depth inspection of the ground at his feet.

“I trusted you.” The Swordsman continued, “You have betrayed that trust. And I’m surprised at you Agh’zak.”

“What would you have had us do?” Agh’zak Skullcrusher growled, “I was offered salvation for my people and you expected me to just sit there and do nothing?”

The warrior, tattooed to the point of being tat-toed, shook his head, “Dear idiots, I expected you to ask for help!”

“Oh.” This time it was Agh’zak’s turn to study the dirt as righteous outrage was dragged into a dark alley and beaten insensate by shame.

“Dus is deeply hurt.” The Swordsman continued, “She’d wanted to say goodbye.”

“Why didn’t she?” Saiko asked, still not making eye contact. He and the prickly gorgon had come to something of an accord of late now that she wasn’t threatening to floss with his intestines. That was one of her friendlier threats, the others… well he tried not to think about them too soon after eating.

“She can’t leave Seruatis, too many enemies who would take the shot if she put so much as a finger past the wall. Same as those damn fool fossils who’ve put this damn fool idea into your damned fool heads.”

Well that at least confirmed that he knew the two of them had been talking to Pheus. In just a day the prophecy had swept through Seruatis and even a tornado couldn’t have done more to upset the order of things.

The biggest thing was the aetheric chains were now public knowledge and that had almost resulted in Seruatis’ first ever lynchmob. Saiko wasn’t thrilled at the idea of them either.

As he was now given to understand the chains were a kind of uber-powerful divine enforcement for the laws that governed Reath, to prevent demon kings, fae queens and other gods from just destroying the world by changing the strength of gravity, making light move at half-speed, nice easy things like that.

If those had been the only rules they enforced no one would have had an issue, it was the other rules…

Mortals must worship gods. Elves must live in forests. Dwarves must live underground. Little rules like that.

The three divine beings that dwelled in Seruatis had come clean on the entire matter, even provided a list of the chains they were aware of and what they could remember about the defences that guarded them.

It wasn’t a complete list. It wasn’t even a mostly complete list, Pheus, Nem and Jay were young gods and hadn’t been there for the actual creation of Reath, but they were doing their best to inform the residents of Seruatis about chains that were actively affecting them, and keeping their lips tightly sealed about the locations and natures of the more structural chains.

The chains were imperfect, people were just too broad a spectrum for any one rule to catch everyone, and they weren’t ironclad enforcers, as Jay had described it to the baying mob they were little more than a gentle nudge to a person’s thoughts. But a slight nudge done across an entire civilisation, every day of their lives, added up to not just a full on poke and prod but an effective shackle to an entire people.

Some of the chains had been broken in the past, the necromancer’s famed Lost Martyr had personally broken the one that forced people to worship gods, and then kicked off the god war for good measure to ensure it couldn’t be rebuilt. Not that the necromancers remembered, all that remained of the Martyr was a vague sense that they had died fighting off a great evil that threatened the world.

A few more had died during the God War. Necromancers shall be obsessed with immortality (Saiko wondered why they’d even bothered to make that one given that thought was alive and well without it), goblins are a servitor species to orcs (he’d never even heard of goblins) and ogres can’t have magic (though ogre mages were still rare enough to venerated).

In some ways those chains hadn’t changed much, in more important ways they’d changed everything. There was a vast difference between things being a way because people chose them to be and because they were forced to be.

What they’d told to Agh’zak though… it turned out there were no people so abused as orcs on the face of Reath, the list of rules forced into their heads was nearly endless. The great orc chef – and former warlord – had shared a couple of the highlights.

Orcs do not formally study magic.

Orcs live in tribes and look down on those who do not.

When the orc tribes unite they do not found a nation but instead declare war on the nearest other society.

Fun things like that which turned the greenskinned people from a somewhat gruff, fiercely athletic but jovial folk into a green tide that poured forth from their barren plains by the tens of thousands. Saiko was amazed that Agh’zak had held his temper, the orc, who had the tattoo on his shoulder marking him as a berserker, who’s ritual scars spoke to a double dozen duels to the death won, it seemed had the patience of a monk.

Or at least that had been his impression until the undisputed lord of Seruatis’ kitchens had shared his plan with him, whilst meticulously putting an edge on a cleaver large enough that Saiko doubted he’d have been able to lift it let alone use it in battle.

The former mercenary had been surprised to find himself integral to the plan, and even more surprised to find that he wanted to go. Despite his line of work he’d never truly experienced wanderlust or a desire for adventure, no worthwhile cause had stolen his heart, nor beautiful maiden. All that had mattered was putting enough coin into his pouch to spend it the next day at the tavern, or the brothel.

There’d been pride in being one of the best at what he did, before discovering Seruatis Saiko would have sworn the number of people on the entire continent who could cross swords with him and live were few enough to count without needing all his fingers.

But the idea of genuinely changing the world, or, his more cynical side pointed out, at least giving it the capacity for change was enthralling. To be able to say he’d done something truly noble. Admittedly saying it undermined the nobility of it but it was a start.

Agh’zak had gotten the location of one of the chains from Pheus, as well as the manner of guard they’d given it, but he needed Saiko to break it. The mercenary, wielder of one of the seven Spellbreaker blades, would be able to do in one swing of his beloved falchion what a thousand years of swinging away with Agh’zak’s oversized cleaver, the eponymous Skullcrusher, would ever achieve.

It spoke well of Agh’zak that just taking the blade had never once occurred to him.

The plan to sneak out had been, not exactly spur of the moment, but the pair were popular enough that there had been a real risk of someone trying to stop them, Agh’zak especially, the orc chef occupying a far higher position in Seruatis unofficial hierarchy than The Swordsman’s own apprentice.

A lot of what the older residents only half-derisively called ‘the mortals’ came to Seruatis just to live in peace for their final few years but Agh’zak was young and there were already whispers that he should be quietly given some form of life extension, either alchemical rejuvenat or, at great expense, a healer from outside Seruatis brought in to turn back the clock.

The plan to sneak out had also been a total failure it seemed, as had all the others, The Swordsman was on his tenth iteration of this conversation, seven groups had turned back, three had pressed on. The town’s guardian would be having words with Pheus and his brothers in the morning, the kind that the rest of the town, and possibly the next town over if he really lost his temper, would be able to hear.

The Swordsman’s arms were folded as he stared down the two until he let his gaze settle on Saiko, “I can understand why Agh’zak would go, but you I don’t get. You’re throwing away everything you wanted, why?”

“It seemed like a good idea. I like Agh’zak, I’d rather he came back alive, and there’s more chance of that if I’m there. Besides he needs a way to break the chain.”

Agh’zak’s frown deepened as his heavy brow furrowed in thought, “You knew. You knew about the chains this entire time and you never told us.”

“Yes, I knew… and yes I kept it from you.” The Swordsman admitted, though he didn’t sound so much ashamed as just regretful.

“Why?” The chef asked, his hand moving to Skullcrusher’s long hilt. He didn’t have a prayer of winning the fight, right now he wasn’t sure he gave a damn.

“Because the chains are dangerous. Yes a lot of them are heinous, most of them from what I’ve been told but the ones that aren’t are vital. If they ever became common knowledge all it would take to doom this entire world is one idiot with more power than sense. And that’s ignoring how many good friends are going to die in this quest, they aren’t lightly guarded, Immortals have fallen attempting to break one. Which brings me to an important question. Which chain did they send you after?”

“The orc lands are barren.” Agh’zak growled, “It’s why no amount of magic has ever gotten more than an acceptable harvest for my people. Why every land we take turns to a dustbowl in time.”

Saiko looked askance at that little titbit, Agh’zak had been tight-lipped about which chain they were going for, wanting to get enough distance that they wouldn’t fear eavesdropping. Of all the chains he’d heard of thus far that might well be the most sinister in its implications.

“It’s doable.” The Swordsman told them, “It’s one of the few chains that anyone could break.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Then why didn’t you?” And there was the rage, kept on a tight leash but struggling for freedom all the same.

“The guardian is a Questing Beast, and a strong one.” He paused for a moment, hoping for some sort of recognition but pressed on when he found none, “They… match their opponent. However powerful the person who faces it, be it in magic, cunning or skill at arms, the Questing Beast will provide a worthy foe, in this case a nigh-impossible one.”

“It’s a shapeshifter?” Saiko asked, a shiver running down his back, he’d seen battleshifting just once in his life and the memories were unpleasant, of a being that would heal in moments, who would just warp their flesh around a foe and suffocate them by oozing into their lungs. And that was just battleshifting, from what he’d heard warshifters were even worse.

“Of a sort. Very limited, very specialized. I’ll give you what advice I can.” The Swordsman told them. “Don’t try and sneak up on it, it will know you’re there because your presence forces it to shift. It’s intelligent so most traps won’t work. And don’t use any magic unless you’re prepared for it to respond in kind. Finally, don’t try to attack it two on one. It will have both your strengths, it won’t have both your weaknesses, if one of you falls then wait for them to expire then step in. Try not to fall.”

The retired warlord nodded, still scowling, “Thank you. I’m not sure I will return, the thought of living in the same place as those monsters repulses me.”

“You’ll be back. For starters they know where the rest of the chains are, or at least most of them, and I doubt you’ll stop at just one.”

Agh’zak didn’t have a reply to that, just bowing his head and moving to exit the clearing, letting Saiko get his own goodbyes out of the way. The mercenary stared at his mentor in silence for a handful of uncomfortable seconds, “I’ll bring him back alive. One way or the other.”

“No. Just one way, he’s not the only one who’ll be missed. Be safe Sai, Dus wanted you to know she’s proud of the choice you’ve made for what that’s worth.”

“Like I need that snakey harridan’s approval.” he growled, “…I mean tell her thanks.”

That was that. The two headed into the forest and it was only once they’d been swallowed by the trees that Alisha closed her book and crossed to the immortal warrior who, in this moment, was clearly carrying the weight of his ten thousand years. “A hard thing, letting them go.”

“I thought I handled it well.” The Swordsman replied, “Thank you for the help.”

“They’re my friends too.” The raven haired woman replied, staring at the gap in the trees where the two had last been visible.

There was more that wasn’t being said there, like the fact they were her only friends, far too many had feigned friendship to get access to her strange powers but Saiko… well the mercenary had never figured her out, and she was starting to suspect he never would.

Agh’zak was an even weirder one, he hated her power, and had flat out banned her from his kitchen when he was cooking, but he didn’t hate her and if there was one thing the orc loved as much as cooking it was a good natter and gossip.

“They’re going to die.” The Swordsman observed, the words lighter than their content.

“They could get lucky…” She countered, the words more an expression of hope than belief.

He rubbed at his eyes, magical tattooes dancing to get out of the way of his fingers, “They’re going to need a lot more than luck to slay a Questing Beast. They’ll need to be brilliant.”

“…damn you.” She hissed, lips peeled back in a hate-filled snarl, “I will not be used like some tool! You can’t just lean on me every time you have a problem you don’t want to be seen to solve!”

“If that’s how you see it-“

“No. You don’t get to equivocate your way out of it this time. I’m done. Tell Dus I’ll miss her, but the rest of you can go fornicate with a porcupine for all I care.”

“Where will you go?” He asked, not surprised, this moment had building for a very long time.

“After those two idiots, they’ll need to be brilliant to kill a Questing Beast.” She declared, more bite in her voice than a crocodile and radish salad.

There were no more words said, two young fools headed out on an adventure, and the last muse followed after them.

*

The bard watched it all with distaste, what a waste of good talent, but they didn’t strike, didn’t inflict upon the mercenary the many sufferings they wished to, didn’t put foes in their path they would struggle to beat, didn’t take this opportunity to try and kidnap Alisha.

A muse would have been invaluable to their work, especially now when their main scrying orb was blank. Still they stayed unsure whether tilting the fate of those who sought a Questing Beast would count as challenging the creature itself.

Reluctantly they tore their gaze away from the scrying mirror, covering it with a blanket lest it be used to watch them in turn.

The main orb in their hidden laboratory remained infuriatingly blank. It was one of the weaknesses of bardic magic, information was the key.

Without knowing where the target was and what they were doing all they could do was send general misfortune their way and that was little better than prayer when trying to kill someone like Erebus. The idea that a mage of that calibre could be taken out through food poisoning, a fall from a horse or a bar fight gone wrong was simply laughable.

The tracker Janiah had been meant to unwittingly plant had never reached its target. That had been manageable at least, they’d gotten lucky (as they so often did) and had been watching the orb at the moment of teleport.

Quick thinking and the expenditure of a small fortune in condensed mana to keep the connection between spaces open a few vital seconds had allowed them to follow the first teleport and they’d been ready for the second one, scrying was a lot less mana intensive than teleporting, the only real source of difficulty had been tracking the spell from a distance, but they’d had practice.

Again they’d tried to press some bad decisions upon the group, force them to go early with the spell only partially charged. That would have been fantastic, and it had nearly worked, though they would never know if the timing of Alice’s arrival had been their work or just Alice moving a little slowly in the snow where time had taken its toll.

That was one of the problems of being a bard. Without some truly incredible groundwork it was almost impossible to know for sure that a decision taken under pressure had gone your way because you’d set it up or just that it would always have gone that way.

Either way it had so very nearly worked, a partially charged teleport spell, triggered in panic, would have likely left several pieces of its targets behind, or, Sato being very good at what he did, an entire person. But an ally left behind was still a win.

Alas, Sato, being very good at what he did, the best had not come to pass. Literal foresight letting him grab the excess mana in the air from the conflicting spells to force it up to full charge, doubtless along with the entirety of his magicka. Still they’d been prepared for the teleport and followed it successfully with their scrying orb.

There’d been few opportunities to tilt the dice since then, they’d tried to stir up some emotion, maybe inject a little anger, but Second Response battlemages were notoriously even-tempered. The information had been useful, they certainly hadn’t seen the demoness coming, and finding Susan was alive… well that had been a bittersweet revelation. Sweet to know she was alive, and bitter because they would likely have to kill her… whatever she now was.

That could be a problem, unknown variables were notoriously hard to manipulate. They would just have to trust Susan’s personality had changed little since last they’d met.

Arcadia was… well frankly it was the obvious play, because it worked. From the moment that they’d stepped through the portal the scrying spell had been shredded and even the narrative spells upon the group had fallen apart – Avalon had its own intrinsic narrative magic and it did not play well with others.

That was a problem, even knowing they were headed for a death zone wasn’t a huge help, there were two hundred such zones just on Contenmere, and a manual search was not an option, some of them couldn’t even be scried safely.

The bard sighed deeply as they shut down the last of their equipment, placing a wand to their temple to extract the memories of the past day’s work (and all days like it) and placing them in the vessel by the door as they left a literally different person, memories to be bestowed upon them when they accidentally stumbled across their own lab once more.

The last of those memories was one of small solace, for all their failures they had at least gotten one of them to carry iron into Avalon.

*

There was one final conspiracy of note that night. Deep in the very heart of Forest Von Mori, deeper than even trusted allies like The Swordsman had ever been permitted to see, down beneath the earth where terrible things had once dwelled, was a tree.

To call it a tree did not do it justice, it was a tree of a previous epoch, whatever species it had been was irrelevant by this point, so saturated in power was it. It towered towards a sky it could never reach deep in its cave. It’s bark blacker than midnight, its leaves white as porcelain.

Its roots had broken through rock and metal with the implacable strength of arbour unbound by man’s restraining hand. Its trunk so thick you could have built a manor within it, somewhat appropriately given this was the home of Von Mori and the key to her unique powers for where the roots met the cracked earth was the dull glint of nullstone.

A vein so rich and pure that a paladin armourer would have wept at the sight. One of dozens.

Null did not play nice with living things, having to live in null-rich soil should have stunted the growth of any tree, and it had. If such a tree had had a dryad every day would be an interminable agony, and it had. To live there would require the dryad to have a sheer determination to live unrivalled by gods and monsters. And it had.

The elder dryads of the forest had been forced to relocate their trees many miles, toiling endlessly since Von Mori’s capture to arrange this meeting at the feet of their great mother. A few hadn’t been able to make it, Oak the Elder, Oak the Guardian and Yew the Younger had left their votes with trusted proxies. They’d hated to miss this, the second meeting of elder dryads in living memory, and trees had long memories, but for all that the great guardian of the forest was absent her oaths were not.

A few simply manifested at the base of the tree, pointless shows of power in the null-heavy air that made the one dryad who never left scoff. The wiser amongst them walked, through the channels deep beneath the earth that only recently a foolish necromancer had nearly stumbled across as he sought a different relic of a bygone age.

If he had found them he would perhaps have been permitted to gaze upon the tree for just a moment before he was killed, a sign of rare favour indeed.

Twisted Hawthorn sat at the base of the tree, a gangly, wispy young woman in appearance, like all dryads her skin hued the same as her bark. The dryad surveying the gathered tree spirits with eyes that did not see light. For a forest of Von Mori’s size and age their number was few, a mere ten, but there were reasons for that.

One of them lay behind the tree, one of only two votes that did not belong to a dryad, a massive scaly and bewinged form that was so still it might as well have been dead, and perhaps was. Noone had ever been brave enough to ask.

The other reason stood at attention besides her, the enchantments on their armour, those few that still worked, was the only source of light in the cave and just a glimmer of it at that. Just enough to reveal the hideous visage of its owner. Captain Johannes Valherion, leader of the Forestguard and a former officer of the Holy Paladin Order, had not been a handsome man in life but death had done him even fewer favours, especially under Von Mori’s personal care.

A branch of twisted thorns spouted out of one eye’s socket, wrapping viciously around his skull to rise in a parody of a crown. Things bulged beneath his arms, one of which ended in a lumpy and misshapen hand that was more a Morningstar made of meat, a spiked mace of pine needles that could shatter shields. He had been missing a leg just above the knee when he’d died, Von Mori had replaced it with living wood, though she’d put the knee the wrong way round, and twisted the other leg for good measure.

All her forestguard were like that, hideous parodies of men, meant to show the fate of those beings of flesh who dared trespass upon her forest.

“The hour of midnight is passed.” Twisted Hawthorn declared at last, “All are here who shall be here. My sisters let us speak of vengeance.”

“I council it as unwise,” Oak the Younger said, younger in this case being a mere five thousand years, “Reprisal may be met with reprisal. Our mother’s life is too precious to risk. Yew the Younger stands with me on this.”

“Predictable.” Yew the Elder spat, the caustic spittle sizzling as it ate away at the rock beneath. “I say we marshal the Forestguard and rouse the elder one from his slumber. Let them remember why they fear us, they will hand our mother over in the face of annihilation.”

That got a fair few nods of support, though those vanished swiftly as an aura swept through the cavern, carrying the flavours of the absence of life and overwhelming territorial aggression. “We know where this leads.” Pine whispered gently, the dryad’s voice was always quiet and not by choice, the terrible wounds on her body had never properly healed and the one across her throat wept antiseptic sap as she spoke.

There were no pines in Forest Von Mori, not anymore.

Seeing she had the floor the northern elder continued, “Sap begets sap. Send an emissary. The paladin hid that our mother yet lived from us, if not for Yew the Younger and the fleshbags in Seruatis we may never have known. The necromancer who fled him has been charged with our mother’s murder, we can greatly disrupt things and not even raise a hand in violence.”

There was a small irony there, Yew the Younger’s political capital had never been so high in her absence, her decision to home herself close to Seruatis finally vindicating itself several times over as a downright gushing pipeline of gossip and rumour poured into the forest.

“There’s an angle none of you are seeing.” Twisted giggled, “They don’t know we know she’s alive. I say we rage, we rage and despair and destroy. Let us avenge her death with a fury not seen since the gods fell from the sky. Send an emissary, foul their rules, their order, their precious systems.”

“Why would we-?” Ash began.

“Because no one rescues the dead. It is a pity little Yew couldn’t be here, reach out to where the dwindling gods dwell, tell them we have need of heroes to save a fair maiden.”

Light dawned on confused faces. “Captain if we were to engage in full scale war on the Holy Paladin Order what would you recommend?” Yew the Elder asked, sweet as any berry from her tree and just as deadly.

“That you don’t.” The former paladin declared before continuing hastily, “Declare war on the Council of Mages as well, they’ll apply political pressure on the Paladin Order, but make it very clear that the old pacts have been broken, and that we didn’t break them. I recommend an emissary to them as well.”

“I thank you for your council.” Twisted replied, turning at least to the scaly behemoth behind them, “And you ancient one? Will you fulfil your oath and fight alongside us?”

There was a far too long pause as a sightless, ruined eye opened to focus on the dryads all the same. “No.”

“You swore-“

“The tree lives. I protect the tree.” The words shook the cavern. The eye closed.

“I believe the plan is at the point where we need to vote. All in favour?”

The vote carried.