I looked around the field once more before slowly walking towards its center as my magic map floated in front of me. The red outlines on my map renewed with the orange as I arrived above where both Mana Wells had been. Raising the map's surface, I could still see the queen’s chamber and the caverns far below outlined in the dark red, letting me know of the significant changes to that area.

I wished it would update my map if it knew that area had changed. Why in the world would it force me to travel back there. Yet another question in the ever-growing list of the craziness of this world.

At the very center of the field, I raised a large polished stone pillar. It was about a meter wide and a quarter thick and stood three meters tall. I had to sink the pillar into the ground and bring a new one up a few times before I got the hang of carving words into the stone. When I was finished, I stepped back to admire my handiwork.

‘Here marks the spot where Lastaf the Axoli gave his life to vanquish the Darkness and destroy the Annihilation Engine.’

I sat in front of the memorial with the words now written and took out the Glitterstones. The construct I needed took many attempts, but my mind seemed to understand what I wanted to do and pushed me to arrange the nodes correctly. Soon I was able to melt down the glitter stones, and with enough force of will and intent, the glowing substance pooled and began to run up the stone pillar before going inside the carved letters filling them.

The liquid crystal cooled, and instead of it remaining flat with the stone, it stuck out in a bit, casting its glow on the stone around it. I thought it looked pretty damn cool.

“That looks tacky as hell. Appreciate the thought nonetheless,” came from behind me.

“I spun around to see a non-burnt but very pale white Lastaf. He looked like complete shit. It took me a momment, but I could see he was extremely thin, and his tail was gone. “What? What?! What! I saw you die!

“Stop yelling. My head is killing me. I know you still have a few bags of travel rations or jerky. Let me get those before I begin to explain. Got any bandages still? My stump will keep leaking unless I take care of it, and what in the world are you holding?

My mind was breaking down. How in the world was Lastaf standing, well swaying in the wind in front of me. His words registered, and I began to stammer as I reached into my bag and retrieved the linen wraps and two pouches of jerky for the Axoli. I looked down at the flip-ball-sized egg in my hand that glowed the dull pink and looked back up at him.

“It’s the hive queen’s, queen egg. I promised the queen I would look after it and steer the new queen towards adaptability with other species. How the hell are you alive? I watched you hold the Divine Shard and stab the Drow in the stomach before pushing him into the Annihilation Engine to get sucked up like soup before things started going crazy.”

I watched the Axoli kneel before turning most of the top of his body almost a hundred and eighty degrees around before he began to bandage the stump where his tail had been. With that finished, he turned himself back around and gently sat on the grass before digging into the jerky. When he was finished with the first bag, he began to explain.

“Back in our world, our race has a unique ability. Various methods can remove our tails so we can escape death. Like a Gecklebear surprising you and grabbing onto it and pulling hard enough. The tail would fall off, the bear would have his meal, and we would be safe running away while losing our minds.

“In this world, our race, depending on our class, gets a unique ability with our tail. Mine, like most warriors, can force it to detach, and it becomes a clone for a bit of time to fight in our stead as we make our escape.

“When you told me to run for it, I decided you needed all the help you could get and cut it off and commanded my clone to help you out. I then made my way through the tunnels. When the ground began to shake, I began digging as fast as I could straight up.

“Sometime later, I awoke in a poked just below the surface and dug myself out. After a bit of time, I felt magic being used from this direction and assumed you had survived and also made it back to the surface. I found you here making a memorial for no other than myself.

“By the way, what you did with the glitter stone is remarkable. You could sell that service to shops for better signs for a decent profit. I regress. I’m glad you made it, Zeal. If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a bit of a nap, and we can head back.”

I went to ask a question but watched Lastaf’s tongue roll out of his mouth and begin to lean to the side before crashing to the ground. I don’t think he was sleeping. I believe he just lost conscience.

I raised a meter by two and a half meter slab of stone from the ground. I removed some rope from the backpack, forced two holes into the top two corners of the slab, and made a long pulling loop. I then rolled Lastaf as gently as I could onto the sled and forced the stone to make a couple of ‘U’ shaped holes that came out of the top of the sled and tied Lastaf down to the sled.

With the rest of the rope, I made a harness-type configuration for the egg and allowed it to hang from my neck. I then pulled the loop attached to the sled and flipped the top around, so it made two loops that twisted in on itself and stuffed my arms through. I adjusted them so they wouldn’t rub my shoulders the wrong way and began pulling the Axoli towards town.

I stopped after a few feet and looked back at the glowing memorial stone, and laughed. With a thought, I sank it back into the ground. It would be an exciting find if someone were to dig it up in the far future. With the grass field pristine once more, I headed back towards Ray’tha Rise.

It was well into the night when I reached Ray’tha Rise’s gates. The guard shouted before I made it to the large wooden doors. Guards came streaming through the small door at the side, helping me take the makeshift rope hardness off. I turned to see a group of them raising my stone sled into the air with Lastaf on top of it and carefully bringing it into town. Someone had offered to help carry me as well, but I waved them away.

I followed the guards to the tavern, not to my surprise, and they lowered the very weak-looking Axoli onto one of the large tables. One of the guards must have gone and woken Horrow up, or he was just in his office but was running up to us in a hurry.

The minx looked me up and down, then over at the very thing and white Lastaf on the table. When had he gone white? I never paid attention to that. “What happened at the hive?” Horrow asked.

“Unstable Mana well, Member of an Eldritch Circle or something and then an Annihilation Engine below the hive,” I got out before Horrow began barking orders for someone to head to the mainland right away and notify the Adventurer’s Guild of the presence of the circle.

I waited for him to stop shouting orders before I spoke again. “The member is dead, sucked into the Annihilation Engine. Lastaf did something with his tail before he escaped.”

“How is any of that possible? It’s rumored that the members of the circle are Rose class threats. I understand Lastaf using his Tail’s Last Stand to escape, but how could the two of you take out a member of the Eldritch Circle?”

“Lots of screaming from me, and his clone, or tail, whatever he did, caught him off guard and stabbed him with a Divine shard before the engine sucked him up like soup.”

“A Divine Shard?! You know what, I’m done. Don’t tell me anymore. I can’t handle this shit anymore,” Horrow said before barking more orders about Lastaf and healers.

I looked around the bustling tavern and saw that Horrow’s office door was open and lumbered into his office, shutting the door behind me. I shuffled over to his cot in the corner and promptly fell asleep as I fell atop of it.

I was awoken not long after by commotion in the office. Horrow and the more pinkish Lastaf were tossing things onto a table. Horrow seeing me awake, tossed a golden bracelet my way. “The payment for removing the hive.”

I looked down at the bracelet filled with nothing but golden coins. I sat up and placed it into my side pouch with the others. “What’s going on? How long did I sleep?”

“Almost two days. The two I sent to Kruton to get on the next boat to the mainland came across two Hunters. One just arrived back not an hour ago to report on them.”

“Hunters? Oh. Those Hunters,” I said in a half-daze before becoming wide awake. “I thought you said Id have a few months?”

“My messenger, Starnall, said he overheard them asking about the new Mana Well. If what Lastaf tells me is correct, they will want answers when they get there, and there is no Mana Well. No new Mana Wells have been created in some time. The newest one vanished, and the crater filled with earth and grass. The hunters are going to know a Hero was about. No one else would have enough power to do that.”

“It wasn’t me. Was the big spaceship in the sky that shot down the divine colored light from space that removed the Mana Wells and filled in the crater.”

“Space ship? What are you talking about?”

“You guys didn’t see the beam of rainbow lights shooting into the air? It had to have gone into space. It was an incredible sight. Then a large metallic space ship bigger than anything from where I’m from just appeared and shot down the same colored light as the Divine Shard, and the beam, Mana Well, and crater just vanished and or changed. I’m not pulling your guy’s leg. I didn’t do it.”

“Metalic vessel like in the legends I spoke to you about?” asked Lastaf.

“I would assume so. The thing just appeared and vanished when I looked away. You guys didn’t see anything, even from here?”

“I’ve heard no rumors or reports of a pillar of light in any shape or form. Or anything large floating in the sky, Zeal,” said Horrow.

“I don’t know then. I’m clueless. So what are you two doing? What’s the general plan about the Hunters?”

“I have someone going to fetch Kizso and Luin now. I’m well enough now that you allowed me to rest. We are gathering supplies and will begin to travel to the east and away from the Hunters. Once we are a day’s travel away, we will travel south to the coast and book our travels to the mainland’s port of Mythtide. There it would be much harder for them to track you,” said Lastaf.

“I understand. Will we be able to find a healer for Luin at the port on either side of the ocean?”

“There should be plenty of healers on the mainland in almost every city,” replied Horrow.

“What about the circle and engine? Will the guild still send someone to investigate?”

“They’ll send someone, but I alerted my report to say you two barely escaped with your lives and were only able to describe this Drow and the shadows on the walls. The description of the Annilihation engine alone will perk someone’s interest. What they find when they go to look for its remains, remains to be seen,” answered Horrow.

There was a knock on the door before it opened, and a blue blur came running through the crack and right into my chest. I held onto the small Kobold as I looked up to see Kiszo walking into the office before allowing a young Bird Beastkin in before closing the door behind herself.

“This is Rind. I’ve asked her to come and take a look at that,” said Horrow pointing towards the queen’s egg on the floor next to my cot.

The young woman looked to me when she bent down near the egg. I gave her a nod and she picked it up and looked it over. She turned it every which way and even smelled it. She stood up and nodded again to me before handing me the egg.

“The egg can be placed in your Void bag, it won’t do it any harm as it currently doesn’t need any oxygen. Make sure to take it out now and again so it has a chance to grow. While it’s inside your Void bag, it will remain in stasis,” said Rind.

“Thank you,” I replied placing the egg inside my bag.

An hour later, I found myself inside a tunnel hidden at the back of the tavern. At Horrow’s request, the Kobolds built an escape tunnel that went under the town’s walls and far to the east of the town. I found the tunnel’s exit to be a dank and mildew-smelling cave set inside a group of large boulders. Looking back, If you hadn’t known about the small cave, you would never have known it would have been there.

We stopped just outside the large boulders. Horrow gave Lastaf a bundle of letters tied together, then handed me a single letter. “This is a letter of introduction for you to the Adventurer’s Guild in Mythtide. I know the Guild Master there, and he owes me a few favors. He should be willing to skip some steps on getting you into The Guild.”

Horrow went back to talking with Lastaf. The poor Axoli looked how I felt. His skin was still a ghostly white, and his tail was now a stump only a few inches long. Kiszo came over and gave me a three-armed hug before picking up Luin and hugging her as well. The little Kobold seemed attached to the lady panther and was sad we were leaving her behind.

“Zeal, Horrow, has told us we can send word via The Guild when the Hunters have left. I hope you can return and tell us of your tales on the mainland. Omaar sends his regards and is sad he has missed you not once but twice. Return to us soon, Hero,” said Kiszo.

I gave Kiszo a final hug and turned around to the waiting chief and Axoli. The villagers pilled back into the cave with a final nod from the chief and out of sight. I looked over at Lastaf, and he pointed with his chin towards the east.

“It’ll take us a week to travel to the southern port, then another week's voyage on a ship to reach Mythtide. There we will stay at least a month so we can teach you the basics and start earning coin from The Guild.”

The three of us then began our travels eastward. I had a massive grin on my face and looked forward to learning new things and seeing amazing sights.

End of Vol.1