“Wounded soul?” asked Maggie. “Wounded how?”

“Like, how did it get wounded?”

“Yes.”

“We were fighting someone who used attacks that caused pain. No physical damage. It just made you feel extreme pain. He also got stabbed in the heart. One of his hearts. But he has two hearts. But they both stopped beating for a little while. He’s on the verge of death, and he’s only alive because he’s in stasis.”

“Ah, unfortunately, I can’t heal that kind of soul damage,” she said. “Not if it’s an emergency. I can do a little bit of soul therapy after the main damage is healed, but that’s about it. I’m not specialized in it. Also, did you say two hearts?”

“Yeah…” said Elise. “He’s a monster… But he’s really nice, and he doesn’t hurt people, and-!”

“You don’t need to explain to me,” said Maggie, holding up her hand. “I understand. But it’s going to be hard to find a soul healer powerful enough who’s willing to heal a monster.”

“Yeah, I know…” said Elise, bowing her head.

“But I might know someone who might be willing to help.”

“Really?”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” said Maggie sternly. “That was two mights. I don’t know if they would help a monster at all, and I don’t know if they would help one on my behalf, so this is a bit of a long shot. I can look into it, but that’s all I can promise.”

“That’s plenty!” said Elise. “Thank you so much!”

“Not a problem,” said Maggie, smiling. “And whether she says yes or not, I’ll come find you to let you know. I won’t leave you hanging.”

“Thank you!” said Elise.

“Alright, if I’m not mistaken, you don’t have much time left before your transformation runs out, and you probably need to get somewhere else before that happens,” said Maggie. “And I need to get to work. So I’ll be heading out now. I will see you later.”

“Bye!”

Once Maggie was gone, Elise shifted her form to be older, and changed her clothes to a large, baggy cloak and made her way out of the slums. Her mind wandered as she walked, starting with Maggie and souls, then moving on to the orphanage and the drugs, until she faltered mid-step as she remembered something important. It was the whole reason she had gone out in the first place. The urban legend.

She had gotten so caught up in the mystery and intrigue of the oddly peaceful slums that she had completely forgotten that she was supposed to have been being mysterious and starting rumors. She supposed she had accidentally succeeded, in a way, though not in the way she originally intended. Rather than a rabbit of justice, she had been a disappearing girl, which was actually probably just fine. Just the disappearance alone would be enough to create rumors, and if she kept appearing around the city as the little match girl, she would probably complete Oberon’s goal.

She shrugged to herself and kept walking. Adapting to mistakes and errors like that was also part of the training, and even if her initial plans had failed, she had something just as good, so there was no point in throwing it away. The little match girl was easier, anyway. She didn’t need to actively seek out crime. She could just appear and disappear on a whim. Of course, she would still stop crime if she spotted it, but as far as she could tell, Everspring was a relatively crime-free city.

She got back to the castle with a quarter hour to spare on her transformation, and when she changed back, she was, for the millionth time, annoyed about the skill. She understood what Oberon said about its intended uses, but if anything, that only made her more annoyed. She was half-tempted just to run off into the mountains and hunt until she reached her next evolution, just so she could have the better version of the skill. Oberon would probably even approve of that choice of action, with his insistence on freedom above all else, but she also knew that she would be actively sabotaging herself. It wouldn’t be that much longer before she capped her skills. Especially now that she had consolidated some of the more tedious ones to make for easier leveling.

She spent the next week and a half semi-relaxed. She went out every day to act as the little match girl, and then spent the rest of the day with the Grays. At the end of the week and a half, {Rune of Fate} finally came off cooldown, and she and the others gathered in a room deep in the castle to finally wake Kaia. The mood in the room was tense when they began, but the tension vanished immediately when everything went exactly as planned.

They had a few more healers from Ostra on standby, and Elise was prepared to take her back into Astrid’s Star if it failed, but it turned out that the divine aether was all they needed. Elise didn’t even need to do anything. As soon as Kaia was out of the necklace, she felt the cooling sensation of {Fey Bargaining}, which she assumed was their previous deal being fully completed, and after a single mouthful of blood, Kaia was fine.

She looked a bit terrified at first, and was defensive when she woke up, but quickly calmed down, and soon, she and her twin, Maia, were embracing each other and crying. While they had their tearful reunion and Elise waited for the divine aether to dissipate, she thought back to Maggie’s words. This channeling of divine aether wouldn’t be permanent. The rune on her soul would evolve, and when it did, it would become specialized. If she wanted to continue channeling the divine aether, she would need to pick a path that allowed for that, and thus far, she had no intention of doing that. She had nothing against Titania, but she also didn’t want to be subservient to her.

That meant that the Rune of Fate would evolve into… something else. That was a little worrying to think about. So far, it had been a lifesaver on multiple occasions, both for herself and others. Theoretically, whatever it evolved into would be just as strong, since the rune existed to channel huge amounts of aether, but she was struggling to think of how it would work.

She thought back to what she knew about other wielders of the Rune of Fate. She had learned about a few of them from Greta, the most influential of which had created the famous Void Chasm. After meeting Maggie, Elise connected the dots and figured that whatever skill he had used to create such a devastating and terrifying spell was likely the product of his specialized Rune of Fate. And the one who had cancelled that skill had likely used their own unique Rune of Fate.

While losing the divine aether channeling was worrying, Elise also found herself feeling a little excited. Those two users had abilities powerful enough to literally change the geography of the world. She had seen multiple world maps, and in all of them the Void Chasm was obvious and easily identifiable. She would have been surprised if it wasn’t visible from outer space. If they could use abilities on that scale, what would her own unique Rune of Fate ability be? Would she also be literally able to change the map?

It will probably be something related to my evolution path, she thought. …Which I still need to figure out…

Once Maia and Kaia had finished their tearful reunion, Nick joined in the conversation, and thanked Kaia for her help. Apparently, she was the only reason he wasn’t a vampire like her. From there, they moved out of the chamber where they revived her and toward the dining hall where Oberon hosted a feast. He even managed to get Otto to the castle in an express teleportation, and after another brief tearful reunion, a happy feast was underway.

Oberon produced a bottle of blood from somewhere for Kaia, and another later when Lily also arrived, and had normal food available for everyone else. It was a relatively happy event where nothing of special note happened. They talked, they ate, they drank, they laughed, and they all left with full bellies and happy hearts.

The day after, Maia, Kaia, and Otto all left to return to Greenwood. Kaia had been the only thing keeping Maia in Everspring, and now that she was awake, they had no more reason to stay. Otto still had work to do, Maia had to get back to her own work for him, and Kaia wanted to settle into a kind of normal routine, so they all thanked Elise profusely, then left. The moment they were gone, the mood turned more serious.

They had been avoiding thinking about it until the Kaia situation was handled, but it had already been almost three weeks since Operation Blood, and Nick was going to have to get back to Jelor soon. They had already been sending regular representatives to bring news and get Nick’s official statement, and Penelope was on her last vacation day, so they had to get down to business immediately and plan the warg hunt.

The plan was that Nick would get Sophie and Bianca their Monster Hunter licenses, and then two days later, they would meet Penelope and a small knight squadron in Greenwood for the hunt. However, as they hammered out the last of the details, Elise started to have second thoughts.

She wasn’t against killing the warg. She still think it deserved to die. It had killed the Grays in cold blood, and had shown zero remorse. Ostra member or not, she didn’t like having him around. However, at the same time, now that Ostra had gone public and were collaborating with Jelor, killing him might cause diplomatic issues.

The biggest problem with this was that Elise had yet to tell the others that the warg was an Ostra member. She hadn’t been hiding it—not at first, at least—but there was never a good time to bring it up, and now it was almost too late. Penelope had already figured out which knights would join her squad, and the others were geared up to go, and she was prepared too. If it continued as-is, they would carry out the hunt, and only later would they find out that the warg was a member of Ostra. If that happened…

Maggie’s words echoed in her mind about being resolved in her decisions, and preparing to handle the consequences… but she was having trouble resolving herself to do this. As much as she wanted the warg dead, the consequences just seemed too extreme. There was a chance they could cover it up, or that Freddy would sweep it under the rug to keep the relationship between the knights and monsters from deteriorating, but if neither of those things happened, she would be royally screwed. She would be the one getting in trouble for manipulating the others into starting the conflict, and after seeing how Freddy treated Emilia, she had no doubt that she would be the sacrificial lamb to help restore those relations.

At the same time, she was worried how all the others would take it. They had been preparing for weeks now, and she had been an active part of all the discussions, and had failed to share the information. The others wouldn’t take it well. They would probably be quite angry with her, actually.

Just more consequences I need to handle, she told herself.

When she took a step back and suppressed her own feelings, the choice was obvious. What was worse? Having the others be angry with her, or starting a diplomatic incident and potentially getting herself killed? It was really no contest. As much as she dreaded their reactions, and as much as she was tempted to not tell them, just to make sure the warg died, it would be incredibly foolish.

“Guys,” she said. “I have something I need to say.”

She didn’t speak very loudly, but the discussion ended immediately, and they all turned to face her. Elise was a bit surprised, but by this point, she was used to her high Charisma drawing attention, so she brushed it aside and continued speaking.

“The warg… is a member of Ostra.”

***

“I kill Ostra!” shouted Walter.

Ever since the incident

, he had been thinking long and hard about how best to get revenge on Freddy. He still hadn’t worked out entirely why he wanted to get revenge on Freddy, but he knew it was something he had to do. He just needed to figure out how to do it. And after more than two weeks, he had finally come up with the perfect plan: he would destroy Ostra. If Freddy was going to kill Walter’s Alice, Walter was going to kill Freddy’s Ostra. It was ingenious. He just had to figure out how to get back to Ostra first.

Walter had no idea where he was. He had taken a few geography lessons at Ostra… but he barely remembered any of it. All he knew was that he wasn’t in the forest where he started.

Under different circumstances, he might have actually been quite happy about his new location. Unlike the boring little forest he spawned in, this new place was full of strong monsters for him to hunt. He had already leveled up ten times since the scroll had taken him here and eaten thirty new kinds of meat. Unfortunately, despite traveling hundreds of miles, he had not seen even a hint of anything with any level of intelligence.

He was currently in a cave that used to belong to a weird bear-like thing that had been strong enough to give Walter a level. He had eaten quite a bit of it, and the rest of it was sitting just outside the cave as Walter licked his wounds and prepared to sleep for the day. He was in a good mood, having had a good hunt, and also figured out his revenge plan, so he slept well, and when he woke up, he practically trotted out of the cave and back along the way he had chosen to explore.

Soon, he came upon a beach. Or at least, he thought it was a beach. He had never been to a beach before, but this looked like a beach. There was sand all around, and the water stretched on and on with no end in sight. He took in the smell of the sea and the sound of the waves for a few minutes before running up to the water for a drink.

“Blech!” he said as soon as his tongue touched the water.

That did not taste like water. It was evil water.

He conjured an icicle and shot it at the evil water. It struck with a mighty splash, and then resurfaced a few dozen feet away, floating lazily across the waves.

“Stupid…” he muttered as he turned away.

He had been keeping himself hydrated with his own conjured ice and snow until that point, and was excited about finally having a proper water source, so his mood was immediately soured. He picked an arbitrary direction and started jogging up the coast, making sure to keep a healthy distance between himself and the evil water. He didn’t put it totally out of sight though. He vaguely remembered someone saying that humanoids liked to live near the ocean and rivers and lakes, so if he kept following the water, he’d eventually come across some humans.

It took another couple hours, but that theory was eventually proven correct. Mostly. He crested a hill, and at the bottom of the gentle slope, he saw the coastline get interrupted by a river flowing outward. Following the river back inland, Walter saw it had branched out from another river, which branched out from another, and far, far in the distance, there was a much wider river that they all came from, and right next to this river was a city.

He happily trotted toward it and started planning his next moves. He couldn’t really enter a city as he was, but if there was a city, there would be Ostra members, so if he hung out nearby for long enough, one of them would find him. Then, he could pretend he wanted to go back to a meeting to learn more things, but then instead of learning things, he would just destroy everything.

However, as he drew nearer to the city, he noticed that there was something wrong. It was a city, yes, but it was all broken. Not a single building was intact, and there were plants growing everywhere, even in the middle of the streets, where he was pretty sure there weren’t supposed to be plants. When he got even closer, he saw that there weren’t even any people around. He waited outside for a little while, watching to make sure they weren’t just trying to trick him, then cautiously entered the city through a hole in the wall surrounding it.

Walter was no expert on ruined cities, but he was pretty sure that this one had been ruined for a really long time. All the broken stones were smooth and weathered, and most were covered in random plants and things. He saw a few monsters running around too, but they all ran away from him before he could get too close. He growled in anger as he walked. He had finally found a city, but there was no one in it.

“Freddy!” he shouted.

He didn’t know why he shouted Freddy’s name, but Freddy seemed to know everyone everywhere, so he figured it would get someone’s attention. Unfortunately, all it did was startle some nearby bird monsters and make them fly away.

Walter wandered the ruined city for a while, occasionally accidentally ruining it more with his bulk by stepping on something unstable, but no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find anything useful. Not only were there no people, there weren’t even any bones of people. He did find a few monsters stupid enough to attack him, but none of them were strong enough to put up good fights, so all in all, he had a very boring and disappointing sign.

He was getting ready to leave the city when he heard something rushing through the rubble toward him. He turned toward the sound, readying another icicle to take out the monster, but when it showed his face, he hesitated to fire. First, it was clearly not hostile. Second, while it was a completely different species, it somewhat reminded him of the days shortly after he spawned. The days when he was still a part of a pack.

Then, he saw the rest of it, and was simply confused. What he had thought was a young pup turned out to be a young pup with ten… no, twenty… well, it had a lot of legs. And it seemed very happy to see him.