Kore groaned as he pushed back on his chair, his feet delicately balancing on the desk with his head thrown all the way back. Sunlight beamed across his face through the shattered windows; a chilly breeze had been torturing him until recently when it had warmed up and developed a smoky flavour. Not that he could taste much right now, his senses numbed by the countless empty bottles strewn around his office.

It wasn’t long ago that he had sat grimly over his table, his ear pasted to the trinket which allowed him to relay orders to his captains on the ground with his eyes poring over the map in front, displaying Lyfort’s layout with hundreds of scribblings over it. He had been changing plans on the fly to deal with the human invaders, hoping Lyfort - his work of art - could still be salvaged. Then he had received the call from Karaes, telling him she had left with Dimas and the new Foltrus, and that he was to repel the humans under any circumstances. All the same, Kore wasn’t stupid - he was a Brightmind, for bloody Them’s sake - and he had known at once that there was no emergency they were rushing off to deal with; they were simply jumping off this sinking ship.

Her call had dried the last creek of hope within him, and subsequently he had placed the trinket on his desk and gone to fetch drink from his cabinets. At some later time, he had become so irritated by the trinket’s incessant vibrations that he had lobbed it against the wall and watched it shatter into its many components; it had been pleasant to break something with such viciousness as the Avatars had broken his Lyfort.

He acknowledged it all now: Ish had been right all along. Even though Kore had been right in his bet that Krumtor would play a key role in the future, being correct had also ruined his life. Neither Karaes nor Dimas had given the slightest care about Lyfort, one settlement out of the dozens under their rule: it had all been about keeping Krumtor safe for them. Even from the start, they had ordered Kore to call back all his troops and turtle up since they hadn’t wanted any unnecessary conflict before they arrived in fear it might somehow affect their soon-to-be-crowned Foltrus.

If it weren’t for them, if it weren’t for the fact that Krumtor had been in Lyfort, then the result would have been the complete opposite. Kore would have had the right to attack when he wanted, and he could have crippled Riverside at the very start with his troops stationed there. Beyond that, he could have sent combat teams to harass the road between Riverside and New Derby, and even if not that, he could have made it difficult, if not impossible, for the humans to encircle Lyfort as they had so easily done. Bloody Them, if it weren’t for the Avatars, Kore would have won this war!

In a fit of anger, the satyr jumped out of his seat, the chair toppling backwards, and picked up a half-drunk bottle. He tossed it out of the window, finding slight relief in the action. Growling, he did it over and over until his office was clear once more, and he stood there panting, eyes hazing out. His mind tested treacherous grounds, and for the first time ever, it stepped forth and considered faithless thoughts.

Was Tyr even the true God? If he was, why had these other two suns appeared out of nowhere? If he was, why had this entire calamity happened? The System was more a God than Tyr had ever been. Even if he was, what was to say the Avatars were special in any way? They were based on bloody moons, of which there were a dime a dozen in the night sky these days. How could they be holier than anyone else when they had been willing to reinstate a renegade without a single second thought?

Anger coming over him once more, searching for a release, Kore paced his office and began to pick up anything he could get his hands around, chucking them out of the window as well. He tore at drawers in his desk and hurled out everything, only giving pause when he saw a gun hidden in the back of one, a pistol, he believed it was called. He recalled he had asked Ish to sneak it out from Riverside, so he could take it apart and research the artifact. In the end, he had never gotten around it, and even now his mind drifted onto the cloaked ryfin instead of the gun.

How was Ish doing? Kore had stopped looking at the citizens list once he had started drinking. Bringing it up once more, Lyfort’s mayor froze for a long moment, before swallowing a thick gob of regret and turning back to the gun. His Lyfort was doomed for; the humans and Avatars had worked together to see it torn apart from every side. Despite this, his anger towards one was far greater than the other: one were just natural predators, while the other were supposed to be guiding and protecting him, not deserting him in the midst of ravenous beasts that they had most kindly shown in. Not only had they ruined his work, but they had made sure to leave him alive to suffer till its end. What a cruel tune the Avatars played to!

But before Kore’s next fit of anger could hijack his actions, his Brightmind took over and suggested another traitorous idea, a rather simple one, really: open treachery. He almost hesitated for a moment before recalling that he had already denounced both his God and his leaders, so what did he have left to worry about? Thankfully, he hadn’t yet thrown out his papers and ink, but he had lobbed out the chair, so he stood by his desk while scribbling away, swaying slightly.

He wrote about the secrets to manastone weapons, the history of the Avatars before they had become such, and all the ideas he had on their weaknesses and how to beat them. However, he wasn’t satisfied with just this so he continued on, jotting down any general ideas he had as well: these humans were an industrious bunch, so he was certain they would find some use or another out of his suggestions. Only when he heard their harsh shouts echo through the lower halls of this building did he feel satisfied, signing off and about to drop his pen when one last thought wriggled into his mind. He wrote this passage with extra care, knowing that he was putting his deepest thoughts to paper.

With this done, he fanned his work across his desk and crossed the room to the shattered windows. Then, reconsidering, he went back to the desk and picked up the gun before returning: there was a chance the fall wouldn’t be enough, and in that case he certainly didn’t want the humans healing him and keeping him prisoner. He had already helped them enough as it was, and he only hoped the Avatars would sooner rather than later join him where he was going.

Kore pointed up at the red sun beaming down on him and smirked. “Fuck you, Tyr.” He shifted his finger slightly. “Fuck you, Sun.” He moved his finger quite a bit more. “And fuck you, whatever your bloody name is.” Finally, he brought the gun to just below his ribs, its muzzle pleasantly cool against his burning skin. He pulled the trigger, gasped, squirmed, and pulled the trigger again.

The curtains closing over his vision, Kore Brightmind sucked in a painful breath and lurched out of the window, his hoofed foot landing on thin air and taking him for a swift journey down. The humans would only find him several minutes later amidst broken glass, stationery, and furniture, his limbs splayed unnaturally with a deep spill of blood and booze pooling under him.

****

Although the attack on Lyfort came out costly - Riverside and New Derby losing a quarter of the troops they took to the war - it was ultimately a success with the Order of Tyr wiped out from the region. Almost immediately, the reigning settlements started sectioning Lyfort amongst themselves as they searched the buildings for what was usable and what was worth looting.

Neither Silas nor Floyd were involved in this process as the former returned to Riverside, drained to his bones, while the latter went back to New Derby in a van, having entered comatose. For some reason, perhaps due to Dimas’s weapons, the Champion’s wounds had barely healed from potions or salves, so although he lived, it would be some time before he recovered naturally.

Yuri, the Cleric, and Renard, the Arcane Fletcher, had been two out of the hundreds to die in the attack, these two apparently being assassinated in their company during an ambush led by a shifty, smoky ryfin. Silas hadn’t known either personally, but they had been figures of influence who had supported his friends during his absence, so he felt sorry to see them pass away all the same.

While the upper management dealt with the remains of Lyfort, he took the time off at home, relaxing mostly with Ethan, Olivia, Bandit, and Mia before he was called in to meet Elise two days after his return. He went with no issue and met the Minister in her office, where she promptly shoved a number of grimy notes in front of him.

“Well?” Elise asked.

“Well, what?” he replied with a knotted brow. The writing was so scrawly that while the System translated some of it, it left much more as scribbled lines. Wondering who had done this, he flipped to the end and saw Kore’s signature, as well as a fully translated last passage.

We were enemies, no doubt, so I won’t ask too much of you: simply deal with the Avatars - this will both serve you and please me in my afterlife. I acknowledge that perhaps you think my information is deliberately flawed to entrap you, but I ensure you with all my remaining honour that I have done no such thing. I truly wish to see those charlatans staked and burnt, quartered after perhaps. As well as this, I shall give you one last suggestion now that you have become the dominant force in the area: make haste in searching out the ratkin base and attack at once.

They are currently weakened and under attack by the mycelia, which is also why they have sent fewer forces to harass our settlements in recent weeks. Despite this, I urge that you do not take the side of the mycelia but rather eliminate them as well with equal amounts of venom as you destroyed my Lyfort. The Rooted Prophet is not to be trusted under any circumstances, and I would like to see him dead as much as I desire the Avatars to trip over and fall headlong into the abyss - take this from one who watched as he grew his faction from just a small grove to half of known Caen, becoming the greatest threat to the Order of Tyr in a span of heartbeats.

Elise asked Silas to read the entirety of the letters out loud from start to finish. She hummed thoughtfully when he came to the end. “As we suspected, the System translates more of that mess for you than it does for us.” Seeing his inquisitive look, she said, “We figured it would do so because of your perception.”

“Huh, so what are you going to do with this?”

“Well, even if it’s not complete, we’ve got enough information there to start testing some of his ideas, at least,” she replied.

“Oh no, I figured that,” Silas said. “I meant the stuff about the ratkin and the mycelia.”

She shrugged with an easy smile. “Come on, Silas. Is that really a question? There’ll never be any rest for us as long as those rats are in the area, so it doesn’t matter if Kore’s lying in his letters or not; we’re still going after the ratkin either way.”