“A level 30 can heal practically any mundane illness, and the lion’s share of mundane injuries. If the Archons, as is claimed by the Priests, transcend levels and mankind, then why haven’t they removed all illnesses? The Church claims such perils are trials set before mortals, but I find that ridiculous. After all, we test ourselves quite a lot as it is.”

Oreanan Vainen, in the Foreword to Preliminary Studies of the Cosmological Order

Hundreds dead, hundreds more wounded. He was a level 25 , and was wondering, now, what precisely he was fighting for. He brushed those thoughts aside. He’d gained , a Talent of and . He mused, distantly, that that meant he was considered a one-man-army now, in the eyes of the Archons, because he for sure wasn’t a great battle leader.

Twenty-five levels. He had been comfortable with 9, back in the day. A handful of weeks and 16 levels later, he was the left hand of the , the Butcher of the Masses, as he’d come to be known. Two days of blood and death, two days of single-handedly slaying, taking wounds that healed to scars with each life he took.

He spat blood on the ground, stumbling away from a heap of carnage. “When will it be enough for you? When will it be enough?” He fell to his knees, his blood-crusted ax clattering to the ground.

Level 26 gained!

gained!

He slumbered, at last.

🟌

The third day since Bim’s return dawned on a scene of Zara hauling logs into place, by herself, in order to construct a cabin for homeless survivors of the destruction, people a foot or more shorter moving efficiently to the beat of her drum. She didn’t order them, truly, but gave general mandates and brought a sense of efficiency and dignity to anything the workers did, from digging latrines to putting up housing.

Better yet, the people of Brosiad were leveling, as , or , or . Simple, good classes, classes befitting recovery from such disastrous events. And more and more, a strange, discordant string of chimes sprang into the minds of many.

ERROR

Level 10!

🠊

ERROR

Class incomp--

-------------

The world was dying, the world was changing. But Brosiad, at least, endured. Greg, between the recurrent Demon attacks, trained scores of and a handful of , all of whom leveled quickly, though many died. Greg wept, in the dark at night, but rose with a grim smile on his face, regardless of the gray bags under his eyes, no matter how deep they got.

Level 25 earned!

earned!

🟌

On the fourth day after Bim’s return, as the sun set on a clear, brilliant horizon, Bim arrived at a hundred-foot-tall hedge wall, with thorns aplenty, that stretched on as far as he could see.

“Dola-Te, Speakers for the Trees! I come in peace, and hail your fair sanctuary, seeking aid at the end of all things! Come spring rivers flowing silver, with uncrowned swift chatterers ruling the green field!”

Silence, then: “How do you know Druidess Baryana’s welcoming chant, in the Earthen Tongue?” The voice came from beyond the wall.

“. That was her level 25 spell. She taught it to me, not so long ago.” The hedge split, seeming to coil away from Bim, leaving a ten foot wide, twenty foot deep break in the wall. Behind it, a small, brown-robed man wearing sandals and wielding a gnarled stick, gawked. “Baryana’s been dead for centuries, and her chants were lost to all outside the Circle. How-- How?”

“I’m on a mission, as it were. The Clockwork grinds to a halt, the world ends. Let’s not wait around; I need to speak to the assembled Circle of Druids. I need their help, as much of it as I can get.”

“B-but-- you can’t just--.”

“I know how to recreate the Sevenfold Silver Leaves. I’ll tell you, IF the Circle assembles.”

The man’s eyes widened, then he nodded and scurried off.

🟌

Caspian Devoleon arrived in Galefast as swiftly as he could, and found a cold, desolate town of only about five hundred people. He found a gray, weatherbeaten, abandoned shack at the edge of town, and creaked inside the little building at speed. His ability to riffle through paperwork was unparalleled by anyone alive, and as such he pulled from a dusty cabinet a sheaf of papers which detailed, in crazed, cramped, and in some places illegible handwriting, a rough blueprint to the Elixir of Immortality.

He smiled a weary smile. It was possible to salvage the dream. They could do what they had wanted to do for more than twenty years, and be the benevolent rulers of all Esun, ushering in an age of true peace. As he exited the shack, he saw a crowd gathered before him. “I come from the capital, fair citizens.” He said evenly. “Do you have need of me?”

Two of the peasants came forward, tears in their eyes. “Where were you when the Demons appeared? Or when the famine hit?”

A feeling stirred in Devoleon’s heart. “I need copper dust, hemlock, and thirty pounds of salt to start. I might not have been here in the past, but I’m here now, and I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

🟌

“Aeda of Gontad, of the Sacred Grove, I have come before you humbly, imploring you by the Old Customs, to take up the fight against the Archons in truth, and walk with me into the Spirit Realm, to banish the Archons, once and for all.”

The white-haired, gnomish little woman, in her pine-green robes, sat, legs crossed, amongst a circle, or Circle, rather, of the eight seniormost in all of Esun, the youngest well over fifty in age, and the least of them having reached level 30.

“You’re level 35, Voice of the Earth. You’ve broken free from the hold of the Sky, and stand staunchly against the forces of dark amassed against all humankind. What more can I say, then ‘let’s finish this?’”

The Circle was silent, eyes thoughtful, faces unreadable. Then one, the youngest, Cynthiana of the Moss, raised her hand. “I will join the cause. The world ends, the earth folds, the sky collapses. Let’s end this well.”

Bim nodded gratefully at her. After some time, the second-youngest, Bran of the Rowan Boughs, second-to-last in the hierarchy, raised his hand. “I will join the cause. I might not be as ferocious as some of my peers, but I can’t sit idly by when there’s a balance to be restored.”

The third-youngest, then, a graying-haired man with many scars, Dolnott Ashbloom, raised his hand soon after. “I will join the cause. I have fought many battles for the grove; what’s one more?”

After that, there was silence. Then, in sync, Jirma and Hirame of the Sunlit Clearing raised their hands, speaking not a word. Five of the eight in support in less than five minutes, Bim thought quietly. Not bad.

Selma of the Rising Tide, her robes smelling of saltwater and her face dark and lined, the air around her heavy and humid, raised one of her thin, calloused hands after several silent minutes, saying simply: “The waves are in tumult. I will see us safely through the storm.”

Caelene, Friend of the Burrows, raised her hand firmly not so long after Selma did. “I stand with the six youngest on this issue. I won’t stand for such unnatural a doom.”

Seven hands raised. Aeda, unperturbed, face unreadable, eyes vaguely twinkling, at length smiled a small smile, and raised her hand. “Let it be done.”