Silas and Mia joined the prophet to the teleporter, received the clearance to leave, and promptly made for Lisa’s Homestead.

If he was to speak from his heart, Silas knew he had been direction-less for weeks now, ever since he had found Chloe and secured her safety. His personal drive to grow had dried up, although it had been frightened back to quarter capacity after hearing Roxanne’s haunting prophecy. But all the same, its solution was so easily followable that it gave no challenge for him to strive for in life, and with an absence of challenge came a lacking drive.

Thankfully, helping the prophet in dealing with Kuraim was something he could easily get spirited over. While he was neutral on the act itself, he was eager overall since Mia felt so strongly on the matter. Ever since she had heard her parents had died, she had drifted through grief and then taken a darker turn. She had done her best to hide this from him and their friends, but Silas had spotted her on several occasions moodily contemplating thoughts, although she always quickly cleared her face and smiled when she spotted him. The most damning evidence, however, came from Bandit, who had pretended to sleep while she had unleashed her thoughts on paper, muttering morose words under her breath.

This had occurred while Silas had been at Dresden, consulting Emmanuel. Afterwards, she had scrunched the pages up with her anger released and thrown them away. Only they hadn’t stayed in the bins for long as a certain overgrown owl had later pecked through the bins when she went out, collecting the balled up pages and hiding them away. When Silas returned, he had been shown these, leading to a tense conversation in their household.

Mia had been abashed but also angry at having her inner sanctum spied upon; Bandit had argued she should have hidden her trash better, before eventually getting such an earful that the owl had soared off; and Silas had arrived at a crossroads he would rather not have come to. He loved Mia, and that love had only grown in the short time they had been together, but he could also see that this hatred was consuming his partner from core out. The love she had had for her parents had transmuted into hatred for Kuraim. For now at least she tried to hide it, but how long would it be before her vengeful emotions grew too dark and intense to control?

At the same time, he couldn’t handle the thought of breaking up with her over this. Who knew what lay for them in the future - for all he knew, they could discover something or another about each other and have a terrible breakup in a week, month, or year - but he was determined to at least make sure this issue wasn’t the one which dug the grave on their relationship. As such, he had promised her then that they would make Kuraim pay for his crimes; before that, he had just had a slight interest in seeing the Necromancer fall, but now there was a personal cost on the line.

Honestly, it helped having such a goal at a time like this since he could use the objective of seeing her vengeance fulfilled to drive himself, giving purpose to his actions. It went without saying it was only a temporary solution, but he hoped to find his own personal goals before this was over.

Exiting the teleporter, Silas immediately glanced around, noting his surroundings as a rather basic village. The teleporter they had just come out of was small, which was usually a good indication of the settlement’s wealth level. Suffice to say, although he knew this was the home of Elisha Luna, the highest level classer for as long as he could remember, his initial reaction was subdued contempt. His gut told him there was something else at play here for her to have survived for so long with merely a simple village, let alone consistently outclass everyone else on Idroa, but it didn’t change the fact that he felt he could destroy this entire village by himself.

Stopping some paces ahead of them, the prophet glanced around with wariness on his face. As unremarkable as the action was, it caught Silas’s attention since he recalled that he had, in fact, never seen the prophet act lost or confused. Whenever he was with the leader of the mycelia, the fungal satyr always seemed familiar with his surroundings and its inhabitants, evidently the results of habitual scouting. So if the prophet didn’t know this area well, it meant the mycelia had failed to spread here. Was that significant? Silas didn’t know, but it supported his gut feeling that there was more to this village than what its appearance revealed.

There were no guards waiting for them by the teleporter, which was set in a dusty field a quarter-mile off the village proper, so after a glance amongst them, the trio headed for Lisa’s Homestead. When they got closer, they saw the village was inhabited by ordinary folk dressed simply and working menial jobs. There were no guards or soldiers in sight. Getting directions from a group of builders working at a construction site with System materials, the trio passed through the bare streets to Elisha’s house.

When they arrived, they saw it was an aged cottage, likely built decades before. They knocked on the door, waited, and knocked once more before it clicked open. It wasn’t Elisha on the other side, but rather a built man of thirty or so years. He was balding with a ginger lumberjack beard, his skin flush with life. He wore a flannel shirt and shorts, smiling through his beard at the visitors. Silas recognised him as Conan Hughes, the Druid, who had been beside Elisha at the congress. Despite this, however, Silas immediately felt something off about the man.

“Ah, welcome, welcome. Lisa’s been expecting you all,” Conan said. He showed them inside, the corridors squeezing down on his thick frame. Elisha was reading a book in the living room, her feet propped up on the sofa.

At their entrance, Elisha took off her reading glasses and placed it with the book on the table beside. She was a slight woman of fifty or sixty, pale with wrinkled skin and liver spots. Her grey hair was tied up in a bun. She had a large, thick aura which Silas had detected from outside the house, but it was warm and comforting, as opposed to Ajit’s and Lucian’s. She stood and stretched out her arm. “Prophet, Silas, and…”

“Mia.”

“Mia, what a pretty name. It’s good to meet you all,” Elisha said, sitting back down and gesturing them to follow suit. Conan left the sitting room.

“And you,” the prophet said, leaning forward on his seat.

“I was quite surprised when I received your invitation,” Elisha said. “I had thought I was well-protected here.”

The prophet gave a slight smile. “There are ways to bypass the stingtails and drakkar, although costly and restricted. But no matter, it appears to have been worth it.”

“Ah, yes, this Kuraim fellow. I’ll admit I am interested in this plan of yours, but do take note that I haven’t thrown my lot with yours yet.”

“You have cultivated an alliance of stingtails and drakkar here,” the prophet started in a tone which suggested he already knew the conclusion of this conversation. “Powerful ones, at that. Moreover, you yourself are a world-renowned healer. Kuraim knows this information, and he knows your location: that is enough for him to strike and want to make you his.”

“Well, neither of us has trouble with the other, so I don’t see why I should start any now,” she replied.

The prophet smirked, “You do not believe that; you simply think this protective circle of yours is enough to dissuade his horde. I am sorry to inform you that those thoughts are flawed - just as I managed to slip through your circle, he will have his ways as well.” When Elisha opened her mouth to respond, the prophet raised his palm to pause her. “Not that he will use them, of course. Instead, he will bide his time as his horde swells, only then attacking and directly crushing his way in. Elisha, you have a power which opposes his, but it will only count for something if you use it before he grows further. There is no limit to his power.”

Elisha sighed, then look to Silas and Mia. “Is this how he got you as well? Trying to scare you into joining him?”

Mia gulped, but her expression steeled. “No, I have personal reasons for chasing Kuraim.”

Meanwhile, Silas watched as Conan walked back in, carrying a serving tray with five cups of tea and a plate of biscuits. The Druid stopped in front of everyone to offer the goods, before placing the tray on the coffee table and sitting down. But even after Silas took his cuppa, he couldn’t keep his eyes off Conan, the niggling feeling that this man was wrong in some way boring into his head.

Silas streamed mana into his eyes and activated Weakness Vision, red flashes of light appearing over the room’s occupants. These were the body parts he could attack from his position and expect to hit, so it only cemented his suspicions when Conan had far more red lights than everyone else. Of course, Silas could attack everyone here, but they all had defensive abilities which they could use in turn, and Weakness Vision took this into some account when selecting the lit up spots. Thus the fact Conan had so many of them meant that the Druid was far weaker than everyone else here, more in line with a level 30 human than a man in the top ten for the classes leaderboard.

Despite this, Silas could hardly accuse him, in the first place not knowing what Conan was guilty of - it wasn’t a crime to be weak or mask your presence in some way. Perhaps this phenomenon was related to a Druid ability Ethan would later unlock, or maybe there truly was something up but Elisha and the prophet already knew about it. Who could tell for sure? Either way, Silas needed more information before acting.

“So I suppose you mean to use my homestead to bait Kuraim or something?” Elisha asked, interrupting Silas’s thoughts.

“No. He would not attack you until he is ready, and by then it will be too late. Rather, I know of several locations which Kuraim has expressed immediate interest in, and which are lacking the defences which you maintain. If you are there with the rest of us - and bring the Magi and clans, if they want - then I am certain we can put an end to his miserable chapter,” the prophet answered.

Elisha looked thoughtfully at Conan, to which the Druid shrugged. “Well, I suppose you make a good argument. Do you know when Kuraim will attack any of these sites?”

The fungal satyr’s answer was interrupted by a System message which flashed in front of everyone there, in fact, in front of every intelligent organism on Idroa.

The Test of Merit is over. Planet 7042-189-E has found its first Sovereign. Ownership of planet 7042-189-E has transferred from the Ratkin Conglomerate to the planet itself for this stasis period as further Sovereigns make their ascensions.