Chapter 401: THE END

In those beautiful days come to pass, after the happenings in the central-city, after the strange and finally horrible year that befell the heart of the world has come to an end, something new has found its way to the presence of the hearts and minds of those who remain.

While it’s impossible to say for certain, rumors have it that a shift has occurred in the survivors of the event. A shift born not only out of a crushing, desperate fear for survival, for both themselves and for their kin, but also stemming from a new sensation, a new yearning that has come with the dawn of the first light of the rising sun, after that horrible day.

Another day might come to pass in which people begin to pick up the pieces, begin to survey what’s left, who’s left and after this day, might come a new week, in which they tentatively stretch out their feelers, touching towards the future to consider what it might now hold in store for them and their ilk.

It is said, in whispers, that these further days to come might be brighter and lighter than ever before, not because of the bulk of the population, which is now missing, but because those who remain have borne witness to the horrible result of what inevitably comes, when pure survival-instinct, when greed and personal desires all take over, dominating and suppressing any other senses that might belong to such things as human-creatures, elves or orcs. Senses to create things of beauty and of kindness, not just material things, but immaterial things as well. Moments, memories, feelings not in oneself, but in the person who is sitting across the table.

There is a reward to these things, a forgotten reward that is only now slowly rediscovered by one person after the other in these days to come, now that the table has been flipped, now that the game has been brought to a forceful end, now that there are simply no pieces left on the board to play with, at least not for another few generations, until the damage of the catastrophe is healed and darkness is once again given a pit to fester inside of.

The world-tree is dead and with it slowly too will wither the remaining ambient magic of the world, bringing an end to the era of adventurers, of dungeons and such things and paving the way for a new era of yearning spiritual hunger.

Of course, this is all pure theory. Nobody can say for sure if this is really what’s going to happen.

But it’s nice to think about.

The woman sits by the fire, holding her hands out towards it. A large bag is at her side, filled to the brim with provisions and supplies that nobody could ever really be sure where she got them from. Looted houses, perhaps?

Or perhaps she really has renounced those ways, some of them at least, and had really afforded herself an escape plan of purchased and earned provisions and goods.

It is said that the human spirit for survival at any cost is what sets them apart from the other races, in a way. In past eras, this was a point of contention, as generations ago, the elves of the deep forests of the world, saw them as more of a plague and a pest because of this particular attribute. Akin to a swarm, they would just spread and spread.

For better or for worse however, this human spirit has led them to thrive and to dominate the bulk of most of the world’s populations. At least on this side of it. Slowly, the other races, elves, orcs are being bred out over generations, just as prior races such as dwarves had once been removed from the playing field. Not through war, but through time.

This human spirit, this is what the red-wizard, the woman who sits by the fire, carries with herself, for better or for worse. Honesty, truthfulness, integrity, passion, dreams, for some, none of these things matter as much as the simple state of survival ever could. It’s not cruelty, it’s pragmatism, it’s reality.

Survival is everything. Nobody wants to die, after all.

The red-wizard, having finished her rest, sits back upright, looking over the blackened landscape. She adjusts her hovering boots, throws her bag over her shoulder and, sparing one last glance at the craterous ruins of a battlefield behind herself, separating her from what remains of the central-city, she turns towards the darkness, grabbing a torch from the fire and marches off into the wilderness.

Whether she has a goal in mind or not is impossible to say, but given the craftiness and the willpower of the long-term planning woman, it would be safe to assume that she isn’t going anywhere with empty hands.

One couldn’t, if they were watching from afar, help but notice that peeking out of her rucksack as she vanishes into the world, is a book. One that is oddly damp and soggy looking, one that could have perhaps been found in the ruins of a structure on the market-place.

But that’s all speculation, of course. It’s best not to worry about it.

The man in the armor stands there, having taken it off for the first time since he was cursed.

A team of priests and priestesses see to his strangely wounded and deeply malnourished body that had only been kept alive by the forces of godly magic. All them tit and tut and fuss around with him, lifting his arms to examine his wounds, before cutting his hair and cleaning his face and washing him down with rags and soap.

But the man just sits there in total silence, staring at the ground, unblinking, the loud, boisterous, charismatic individual that he once might have been, having been stamped out by the cruel hand of fate.

Horrible things have been wrought by his own hands, which he stares at, yet none of them were really his doing. He was simply a vessel, a thing that was at the wrong place at the wrong time and perhaps it is even fair to say that he had had the cruelest fate of all. Which is, of course, a sort of sad irony that a kinder person wouldn’t want to be present in the world.

After all, how mean would that be? To just leave him here like that, after all of the kindness he’s done for them.

Even if he doesn’t know.

Garnett lifts his eyes, watching as the door opens on the other side of the room and there stands a strange, awkward, gangly looking girl who, while still in the body she has arrived in this world in, now seems to have somehow grown into it more.

The house-spriggan was able to respawn, after all and with the fading of Perchta’s magic and a little helping nudge from a spiritually powerful witch and a priestess before that, many things could be wrought. Of course, only with the unspoken help of the gods, who are more interested in selling a divine, holy, protective image to their followers than actually helping them.

Peridot and Garnett look at each other and then, crying, rush to meet another in the middle.

Strictly in theory, of course.

After all, with the horrible witch of the north having been slain by the hero and her minions having died during the battle for the central-city, nobody is alive who could possibly see all of this happening in this clear of a context.

The fairy, Veli, sits there on the shattered table, a broken necklace, run out of magic held in his small, but strongly trained hands.

The magic of the mountain is starting to fade away. The magic that sustains him to live outside of the natural domain of his kind.

He can feel himself draining. It’s exhausting. He feels like he’s falling asleep on the spot.

Glass slides across the wood and he lifts his head, looking at the group of familiar faces who surround him, one short.

It’s not a pleasant idea. But he has to do this.

Not for him, but for them. For the faces who surround him at this table, for the people who have given him themselves and their friendship as the foundation and walls of his home. He can’t just leave them here, like this.

Everyone is counting on him.

Veli looks at the uncorked monster-potion that he stands before. The one a familiar person had given him, during the catastrophe. The black, onyx liquid bubbles too, as it begins to lose its magic.

He has to drink it. Now. Before it’s too late.

The fairy nods to his friend, who slowly holds the bottle sideways, allowing him to drink as much as he can.

He doesn’t know what being classified as a ‘monster’ means. But surely it has to be better than dying, right? The young man clenches his fists, closing his eyes as the first, acrid drop hits his tongue.

- He’s going to do it for them.

A man slithers through the shadows, skulking around a corner in a large palace, leaning against the wall to listen to the conversation that two regally dressed people, one of them, an expecting elven woman, have. They’re speaking about the future of the city, of the continent.

After all, now that they are essentially wiped out, there’s nothing left to protect them from the other continents. Something has to be done and fast, if they want to survive. They need a plan, they need help.

The man, having died many deaths and returned to life just as often, smiles a wicked smile as he waits for another man to walk past, carrying his two dark-elf children in tow and then spreads his arms out wide as he approaches the two nobles, entering into a conversation that isn’t his to enter.

“I just so happen to have a solution for that,” hisses Patala excitedly, laughing.

The two of them look his way, narrowing their eyes in suspicion.

Though, really, again, this can’t be said for sure. It might as well all be imagined.

The crystal-ball runs out of magic.

“Okay. We’re putting an end to this,” says Jubilee.

Basil nods, standing next to them. Though, there aren’t many other places to stand. Space is a little cramped up here, after all. “Should I, or do you want to?” she asks.

“Let me,” says Shamrock, the man glibbering and globbing around. He had to leave his armor behind after all, because of weight constraints.

Fresh looks down at the crystal-ball beneath herself, the remaining magical energies of which are now entirely depleted.

With Perchta’s death, her own magic is gone and so, she has no primary class anymore. The woman who she has become over the course of a year and then some days looks at the glass for a while, staring at her reflection. “Hey,” she says, not sure if the woman on the other side can hear her anymore. She likes to think so at least. “Thank you,” says Fresh.

Her double, the reflection, had gone far above and beyond to act in her stead. Fresh herself, the real Fresh, hasn’t been in the central-city for a while now. It was the reflection, her double, who encountered all of those horrible things. It was the reflection who ‘died’ in order to sell the image that the horrible witch was really and truly dead, so that nobody would ever go looking for them.

The reflection, of course, isn’t really dead. But without the odd, cosmic oddity that is a witch’s magic, she can’t respond either, assuming she can even hear any of this. Fresh isn’t sure, but she likes to think that the smile that she sees there, is just a little brighter than the one on her own face.

“Thank you,” says Fresh again, not sure which version of herself she’s saying it to, as she hands Shamrock the crystal-ball. The man takes it from her and then leans back, before lobbing it out and over, throwing it as far and as hard as he can.

The glass sphere spins, catching the rays of morning sunlight as it spirals downward, falling, falling, falling, until it falls into the deep depths of the dark blue ocean below, vanishing forevermore.

- Presumably.

“No more witch shit,” says Jubilee, dusting their hands and sitting down awkwardly on a basket.

“So can I get a new class when we get there, Jubilee?” she asks. “Maybe I can really become a healer of some kind now?” she considers. “Well… no…” Fresh shakes her head. “I don’t want to steal your part, Basil.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it,” says the priestess, sitting down and leaning against Jubilee.

Shamrock wobbles around the small platform and Fresh lifts her eyes towards the giant balloon above their heads, that is floating thanks to the remnants of her magical-crafting, thanks to the crystal-drakonium balloon and just a few, teensy, tiny drops of magical water.

After all, it’s not like Perchta was the only source of magic in the world. The sun-water works just fine and it has just as many applications as the moonwater did.

Sure, the flying balloon is a little tight, since they had to make the entire thing essentially overnight out of wood from their basement, crystal-drakonium and fighting spirits. But…

Basil sighs, swinging the harpy-feather-duster out again, a bottle of sunwater glued to its handle. A gale presses against the balloon, shooting it towards the east, towards the other continent where they’re going to start their lives anew.

“Can I become like… an anti-witch?” asks Fresh.

“The word you’re looking for is ‘dead’,” replies Jubilee, shaking their head. “We’ll figure something out. First thing’s first, we have to get there,” they explain.

“Then we have to blend in,” says Basil.

“Then we have to work,” says Shamrock.

“Yeah…” says Basil, looking around. “Anyways, listen, there’s something that I really want to get off of my chest.”

“Ugh, really?” asks Jubilee, groaning and rolling their eyes.

“Yes, really,” insists Basil, jabbing them with her elbow. “It’s not fair that we keep this a secret any more.”

“You better not make things weird,” warns Jubilee.

“Please,” replies Basil. “Things are already weird.”

“Ain’t that the truth…” says Jubilee, leaning back against the ‘wall’ behind them. “Fine. Whatever. I don’t give a fuck.”

Fresh blinks. That’s right, Basil was trying to tell her something before it all happened. Basil has been trying to tell her, tell them all, something for a long time now. Perhaps now, perhaps now that everything is settled and quiet, Fresh is ready to hear the priestess’ feelings.

The once-witch gulps, nervously sitting back straight and upright.

“I hope this won’t make things awkward between us all,” says the priestess. “I really thought about these feelings for a long time and, well, the truth is,” says Basil, looking at Shamrock, looking at Fresh for a moment, her eyes looking uncertainly into hers for a while longer. Basil lifts her hand, her red-stringed chicken bracelet jangling in the light of a new day as she lets her grasp fall around another’s hand. “- The truth is that Jubilee and I have been dating since the east.”

Fresh blinks. “…Huh…?” She looks at Jubilee, who looks her way and nods. The priestess and them hold hands. “HUH?!”

It’s a long, confusing flight to the other continent. But, they make it there and whatever happens after that, well, it’s just best not worry about it, okay?

It is what it is.

Razmatazz