TS12 had already recovered its emerald canopy and could be seen from far away. After they saw the giant tree in the distance, it still took them an hour of riding the undead to reach the wooden city below it.

Seth and the others could have been there a lot earlier riding their own mounts or Puffles, but they stayed with the survivors to keep up the image and give reassurance about the undead under their butts.

The ground surrounding the thriving tree was drenched in blood. Despite the bodies missing, the crimson snow and mud made it clear that they were crossing a battlefield. A caravan of undead crossing an empty battlefield. Someone might get the wrong idea of what happened here.

When they approached the tree station, there was already a crowd of people waiting for them. Refugees who arrived earlier, adventurers, Oathguards, and the rest of the field teams who had stood back at the tree stations in case of an emergency. They had already prepared for their arrival.

“Coralie!” they heard the voice of a woman call out the moment they rode into the city. A crowd of people were already waiting for them. After leaving the city borders, they were able to use com-orbs again.

“Uncle!” they heard a squeaky voice cry out. The little girl let go of her mother's hand, who was standing among the crowd that was ready to welcome them. The girl jumped into the arms of her malnourished uncle. The man in question was Mark Baker!

~Baker had a family? ~ Seth asked Evee a little surprised, using telepathy. The Underworld Fairy could only shrug her shoulders. It seemed like they had kept their relationship with Mark Baker a secret, or simply nobody asked about it. It was not like anyone in Minas Mar had been looking for a dead man.

“Mark? Mark!” the woman now also ran forward, after recognizing her brother. Tears running from her eyes, she hugged his neck.

“Mike, you guys were okay!” Lydia broke through the mob and hugged her boyfriend, who was still wearing nothing but sweatpants and a wifebeater. It wasn’t that they didn’t manage to recover his items from the prison, the problem was that everything except the helmet was either unwearable or broken beyond repair when he was ruthlessly ambushed by the immortals.

Seth had yet to check properly, but it seemed like he would be unable to save anything but the Helmet of Krios and the gloves. Even Flaming Fury was broken. Seth could have reforged the items, but at this point, it was better to make new items for Mike, especially since he was finally chosen by Maahes. But that would have to wait.

While Mike Baker and the refugees of Y-City were treated to blankets and a warm meal, Seth and the others were ushered to the center of TS12, towards the command center where Leana and Mary were waiting for them.

“Seth, I’m glad you brought everyone back,” Leana said, her face marred by the worry of the past day. Mary didn’t look much better when she wordlessly fell into his arms, crying. Despite always keeping up a strong and dependable façade, once it broke, Seth recognized the frightened woman he had saved in the forest, back when he returned to Urth.

It took a while to calm her down, it helped that everyone who went to Y-City had returned alive. When Mary recovered her countenance, the questions began. Of course, they wanted to know everything that happened.

Although everyone was kind of tired, they quickly hyped each other up telling their stories. Mike explained why he looked like he did and how he managed to free himself with the help of Maahes and Seth's prototype jewelry, which earned Seth a bunch of side glances.

Fin colorfully described how she crushed the immortal that attacked her. She really used a lot of sound effects and gestures. Mina described how she managed to beat her attacker in a slightly calmer manner and how she went to look for Mike.

Bulko and Lyxiss talked about what happened at the church. Having overcome the side effects of her skills, the elf spoke rather proudly of how she managed to save the day, except of course for that little mishap with Samuel dying.

“But Seth is going to revive him, so it doesn't count, right?”

With that, the ball was in Seth's court. So the blacksmith recounted what happened after he was teleported away. The mass fight, the duel, the raising of hell, the only thing he left out was the vision of the little boy and his conversation with his grandpa.

When he got to the point when he returned, everyone had stuff they wanted to talk about and add to his story, despite already having said what happened from their perspective. When he finally finished, it was Mary and Leana's turn to give a report on how the Tree Route had fared during the past few days.

It seemed that nobody dared to mount a huge attack on any of the original stations. It was mostly the Tree Stations 8 through 12 which had been built during the recent expansion, that had faced heavy attacks from the scene, with 8, 9, and 12 facing the greatest attacks.

Despite doing their best to recruit reliable guardians, it seemed that two of the stations were ultimately saved by unexpected visitors who decided to come to their aid. Genevieve had appeared again, the vampire lady from Sigma and the sister of Vlad. She had saved her brethren from the invaders from Spatia and also seemed like she decided to stay at TS9 with the rest of the vampires.

Uno and Tearlach, the most suspicious couple from the time when gods still roamed on Urth had been saved by a random bard and a creature that was described as a fairy of decay in the report. The bard was actually one of his Faer and had pleaded to meet Seth someone in the near future.

Seth was less inclined to visit the bard, as long as they were loitering in the vicinity where Uno and Tearlach lived. The blacksmith was about 70% sure they were somehow involved with the slumbering realm, and he still tried to keep his connection with them as loose as possible.

“Ask them to come to Delta, I will meet them there,” Seth said decisively. This would give him some time to relax

…

---Beta, Thres---

The sound of a pack of wolves echoed through the darkness beneath Thres. Workers from Little Sigma had reported strange happenings, sounds, and some missing people in the sewers close to the northern water treatment facility they were trying to repair.

All of them were adventurers around vl.50-60, so they would not just fall to a random weak mob. Following the reports, Adam descended into the underground of Thres to find out what was going on and hopefully end whatever caused it.

The artificial druid had to admit that this sound was disturbing. Even with his strength, he couldn't resist the instinct to feel disconcerted at the sound of over thirty wolves hunting, barking, and yelping

Especially when he was walking down a modern concrete tunnel, lined with rows and rows and rows of water pipes. It was a sound that simply didn't belong in this environment. It was simply out of place. Still, he followed the sound, suppressing the awkward feeling in his stomach.

“What the fuck is that?” he whispered when he turned around the corner. It was a vast call, filled with subterranean clarifying basins. He didn't expect it to smell like a field of flowers, but the stench that suddenly filled his nose was disgusting.

As offensive as the smell was, his eyes were glued to the beast calmly drinking from one of the basins, quickly draining the rotting water inside. The creature had the head of a snake, the body of a leopard, the tail of a lion, and the legs of a deer.

He didn't need to use a skill to see that it drinking from the water quickly poisoned the basin, similar to how some dragonkin could do. Around the place it was lying, he saw the half-consumed corpses and bones of the people that went missing. Cautiously, he used on the beast.

He barely managed to keep his voice down and not curse out loud, when he saw that it was a high-level creature that had somehow wandered under their city and was poisoning their water supply. There was no way he could do this alone, he would have to call reinforcements...