The scene that was laid out in front of us was one of organised chaos. Micca had taken up the duty of keeping the horses together and stopping them from wandering off. Jen and Milo were going through several potions, trying to at least bring George back to consciousness.

Off to the side, I saw Liane and Hari in what looked like a heated discussion—no doubt about leaving behind so many on the verge of death, and not taking proper revenge for the ones who had already passed. She'd made her view on leaving everyone except the Colonel alive very clear during our short horse ride.

Honestly, I couldn't help but agree.

I was angry. Angry at the people who did this to my friends. Angry at the orphanage for filling our heads with lies about the glory and honour we'd find joining the army—fighting off the evil demonic forces who tore asunder our sky, turned our lands into hellfire, and constantly sought to overtake the world.

Yet now I'd learned it was all a stalemate. And still we were sending off people by the hundreds—if not thousands—with no training, starved and beaten, for what?

Who knew about it? The orphanage, clearly. But what about Elder Peter? Martin? Geo?

Who knew what they were being sent into and just… accepted it. Said nothing.

I could feel the anger bubbling inside me. I was ready to burst—not at anyone in particular, just at the situation. At the world. At everything.

But what would that help?

I had Darren next to me, still in tears after finding out his best friend had died. I had one of my oldest best friends lying in front of me, with a foot in the grave. Who would it help to let all this anger boil over?

I took a deep breath.

I wouldn't forget this—but right now wasn't the time.

After only a few minutes, a familiar pressure rolled over us. Lily had arrived again. At least there was no bloodlust this time, just her presence—but it didn't stop Darren from going pale, his eyes wide in panic.

"Don't worry," I said, eyes on the cat as she sat in front of Crisplet, looking him over intently. "She's on our side. Her name is Lily."

"What… what is it? I can barely move." Darren stuttered, his eyes never leaving Lily.

"It's a Shadow Cat. She was—or still is—the guardian of the Dark Forest," I said, still not sure how to explain it properly. "But she likes my food, I think."

"Your food? The… Dark Forest?" Darren echoed, clearly struggling to process any of it.

"Yep, which reminds me, she hasn't shown up for a couple of days," I said, getting up from the ground. I saw some movement from George, though his eyes still weren't open. Liane had joined Jen by his side, while Milo was off building a stable for the horses.

I walked over to where Crisplet and Lily were likely having a conversation.

"Uh, sorry if I'm interrupting. Lily, I have some food for you," I said, pulling out the piece of dragon tail I had prepared and placing it on the ground.

Lily padded over and started eating it without even sniffing first. I noticed she was taking small bites, as if she were really savouring this one.

"Erm, Crisplet... I saw you're no longer attached to the skill. Did you want to leave and explore on your own?" I asked, incredibly nervous that he'd say yes. I knew bonded companions didn't usually leave, but I'd never heard of a skill gaining sentience and deciding to stop being a skill altogether.

After a long look, I got a single ember flung at my forehead.

I sighed. "That's a giant relief. I was really worried you'd want to leave. Can you still help with cooking now that you're no longer a skill?" I asked. That was my other great fear after seeing those notifications.

This time, a bright burst of sparks lit up. I couldn't help but break into a grin. If Crisplet had said he wanted to leave and explore, I wouldn't have stopped him—but it would've felt like losing a friend.

A moment later, I heard coughing behind me.

Turning around, I saw Jen helping George sit up. His hair was knotted with things I didn't want to identify, and he was absolutely covered in dirt and grime—but he was sitting up.

"Where am I?" I heard his voice croak out as he looked around at the adventurers surrounding him. I could only imagine how confusing it must've been when he was supposed to be with a massive army group.

"George!" I yelled, running over to his side. Even Darren looked up.

Crisplet had already floated back to Lily, clearly resuming whatever conversation they were having.

George turned toward the sound of my voice. His eyes widened—bloodshot and rimmed with heavy bags—and his skin looked a sickly grey. It took him a moment to process before he croaked out:

"Trevor?"

"Yes! It's me!" I called back, just reaching his side and practically collapsing to the ground next to him.

"Easy, Trev. He's still incredibly weak. He'll need to eat something small and start drinking water—slowly. His body's dehydrated, and he's literally starving to death," Jen said, tempering my excitement.

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Looking at George now, she continued, "You're not out of the woods yet. You need to eat and drink immediately, but start small. If you go too fast, your body will probably reject it. Make no mistake—the potions have bought you some time, but you, my dear boy, are on the brink of death."

"Catch-up can happen later. For now—Trev, I need a soup or something. Easy to eat. Milo, water, please," she barked out orders.

Liane had already beaten me to it, pulling out several of the spider soup vials. Jen, for once, didn't even scoff at them—just handed one to George and ordered him to drink it slowly.

I just sat there, ready to pull out any number of soups, meats—whatever was required.

I also couldn't help but notice that Lily had decided now was a good time to take a nap, while Crisplet had already started a fire, and Milo was building a large round house around us, rather than making us move to it.

"What happened?" George asked between sips of soup, a water skin now in his hand.

"Trevor, why are you here?" he asked again, glancing at the others. It seemed like they were leaving it up to me to decide what I wanted to share.

"Well, it's a bit of a long story, really…" I began. And while George was drinking his soup, I told a somewhat brief tale of what had happened and what had led me to come and find him.

Darren had made his way over while I talked, clearly curious himself.

I left out a few things I didn't think they were ready to hear—or would even believe yet—like the dragon attack… or the other dragon requesting a snack.

Surprisingly, neither of them interrupted me. They just listened, eyes wide.

"I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye. I regretted that choice. I should have, but Luk—" George began, but I cut him off.

"It's okay. That was a strange and chaotic day for all of us," I said with a smile.

"The army… it was nothing like what they told us," Darren muttered.

"We were treated worse than animals," George added softly.

"Well, this is as good a time as any," I said. "We actually came to get you, George. That's why we were here—to take you to the capital. If you wanted to, that is. Micca over there's a merchant from Dunhearth, just starting out, and we were going to see if you'd like to work as a guard for her."

"The capital? Me? A guard?" George echoed, clearly stunned.

The others had stayed quiet until now, but Liane chimed in.

"At this point, it's best neither of you returns to the army. But the soldier class is one of the better classes to pivot into becoming a guard."

"Once you've got your strength back, you'll need real training," Hari added.

Both Darren and George visibly paled at the word training.

Hari sighed when he saw the look on their faces. "No—not like anything you've experienced so far. Real training. Something that actually teaches you how to use a weapon."

That didn't seem to reassure them much.

"He's been training me every day for the last week or so," I added. "We weren't taught anything properly at the 'academy'." I emphasised the last word with disgust. At this point, it was no academy—they taught us nothing of value at all.

The bitterness welled up again, but this wasn't the time.

Darren surprised me when he spoke first.

"Do you think… she'd need two guards?"

George got another shock when he turned around and saw a giant shadow cat curled up beside the fire. I suspected that if either of them truly understood just how strong—and dangerous—Lily actually was, they'd be frozen in fear. I'd left a lot of the excessive parts out of my story.

They didn't need to know about the dragon tail yet, or the drake carcass. Those were things they could learn about another night.

Tonight, I even forgot to cook—but everyone had rolls. Liane had soup as well, and there was jerky.

No one complained. If they had, I would've come to my senses and cooked something right away.

Jen checked on George several times, and Darren eventually went to speak to Micca to see if she'd accept a second guard. I tried to tell him not to worry, that I thought it would be fine—but he insisted on asking.

As the night wore on, exhaustion overtook us. I gave my bedroll to George. Surprisingly, Milo handed his to Darren, saying he preferred being closer to the ground anyway.

And I'm certain he worked some magic where I lay down, because I'd never slept on ground so soft.

***

The next morning, the lack of dinner the night before really caught up with me—and now, with eight people again, it was time for a large breakfast.

The first thing that caught my attention when I sat up was a giant statue in the middle of the room, made of ash and hot coals.

A statue of Crisplet himself, posing with a flex.

I couldn't fault him—it was a really good statue—but I was starting to think he might be getting a bit of an ego. I got up, laughing to myself as I walked over, imagining that everywhere Crisplet went, he just left a giant statue of himself scattered across the world.

"Morning, Crisplet! Nice statue!" I said, getting a burst of embers from the elemental.

It was only as I approached that I noticed a smaller statue on the opposite side. Lying on the floor was a miniature statue of Lily.

I burst out laughing. Of course Crisplet would make a statue of himself so much larger and make Lily barely double the size of a barn cat.

"Nice statues!" I amended through my laughter before heading to the entrance to wave good morning to Jen and Milo.

After that, I got to work on breakfast. I was going to make today a good one.

Looking through my inventory, I found exactly what I was after—a single smoked boar belly. I had plenty of eggs, so I decided on fresh rolls, grilled thin-sliced boar belly, and fried eggs.

It wasn't a meal I could really infuse, aside from the rolls. I'd tried infusing the eggs in the past, but there was never any noticeable buff from them alone. Milo had suggested they likely held something, but it would require multiple ingredients to extract it properly.

Crisplet happily made me a grill and a small oven to cook the rolls and boar. In fact, he turned the statue of himself into the oven, and the bars of the grill extended out from Lily's statue's back.

I was going to have fun with this.

Soon, the smell of fried boar belly and eggs, along with freshly baked bread, roused everyone from sleep. George looked much better—still incredibly dirty, with matted hair covered in what I assumed was dried blood or something—but he'd be able to wash that off later this morning when Milo set up a wash area.

Once we were all sitting around eating, Hari decided to share his plans.

"Right, while everyone's here and listening, our goal is the capital. We're also going to drop by Dunhearth on the way, so that's all pretty simple," he explained.

"But we're not going to take a direct route there, because that would take us past the army again—and Portland—and I think, for the time being, it's best we avoid both. I think we could all use a little breather since we're not really in any major rush anymore?" he said, more as a question, looking around at everyone.

"So, because I'll need to train the boys anyway, I think it's best we continue to follow the coast west and head to the city of Grey Rock down on the peninsula. It'll be good for Trev to get some seafood, we can relax a little, and there's no dragon looming overhead to destroy everything."

He glanced around, waiting to see if anyone objected to the idea.

All he got were confused looks from Darren and George at the mention of a dragon.

"Never mind—I'll tell you later," I said in a hushed tone.

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