I gasped and fell to my knees, letting go of both Civa and Dima as I did. My head was spinning as a sense of loss flowed through me, as if I had forgotten something extremely important. Unbeknownst to me, a small mote of crimson mana that came out of my mind zipped away in an instant towards the swarm, unseen by anyone within the barrier.

“Harvoth?”

Civa immediately dropped down next to me, grabbing my arm as she did, both Dima and Ordo following along. Only Vica remained standing as she stared down at me in shock.

From her own eyes, Vica could see that the faint red energy she had wanted to alert Harvoth to before seemed to have completely disappeared. Before, she had felt like something about him was off and had discovered the strange mana beforehand, but was interrupted before she could tell him. She didn’t bring it up as she assumed that it was simply a remnant of the mana ravaging he had mentioned before, and he already knew about it.

Now, while Harvoth’s mana did return to its normal verdant green, she took into account that he seemed to be hurt and looked further. Looking deeper caused her head to spin, but she soon saw that a very small part of Harvoth’s gathered mind mana was missing. It wasn’t like it had simply been depleted, as that would’ve shown in the verdant green fading in color, but there was a physical circular hole-sized chunk missing in it that wasn’t being refilled. She tried to focus on it more to see what had happened, but either her lack of training or the fact that there was nothing left to see kept her from seeing more.

On the ground, it wasn’t mainly pain I felt, but instead, I was filled with confusion as I struggled to remember the last few moments. The more I pushed for it, the more my head began to hurt.

“I know I went up in the nook and saw everyone, then Dima called us down, I saw the Elders, and then Dad was heading to us, but…what was after that?”

I started to get back up as I held my head and was supported by my friends, unable to remember what I had lost, but knowing that pushing for it wouldn’t work. Looking outward, I saw that my father had reached the barrier, depositing close to 40 other injured villagers. Alongside him, helping people to the medical team was a tall, lean troll who held a giant glaive with an autumn leaf-shaped blade.

Those who were just getting here had the worst injuries. A singular farmer named Roman was looking blankly at the ground, and I saw his once-burly arms had become thin, with crimson veins covering large sections of his skin, beating irregularly. His cheeks were sallow, and his mana had dropped to dangerous levels, making him the equivalent of a man who was moments away from dying, but somehow still able to stand. Drool dripped from his mouth as he was led away to the medical sight.

A small family I recognized was off to the side, a mother, father, and their two sons, sobbing as they all gazed down upon a singular small arm. They held it at the center of their group, holding each other and the appendage that I could now identify as their daughter, Saties. None of the family members seemed to be going through mana ravaging, but large sections of their flesh were gone, with blood pouring from their wounds, with the mother having the most, who also seemed to be crying the hardest as she clutched the arm. I felt my arms shake as I looked at them.

There were plenty of others who were suffering. None of the 40 rescued seemed to be doing alright, as some had injuries, were grieving, or were actively suffering. I held my breath as I looked at them all, guilt gathering in my chest as my family was ok, but so many weren’t. I also noticed that none seemed to have injuries that looked like they were attacked by the insects…I guess none who were attacked by them survived.

“Harvoth, I’m sorry I didn’t say this before, but I think you had some of the crimson mana in your head. The same one that’s in the bugs, but now it’s gone, and a piece of the mana in your mind is missing.”

Vica spoke up in a quiet voice, bringing me back to the rest of the group as she looked at me worriedly, her hands clenched on her pants. I slowly nodded my head and responded.

“I think…you’re right. I’m missing something, and it's probably due to the mana that hurt me earlier. I-I need to go find my mom to see what’s wrong with me. Thank you, Vica,” I said as I looked at her, then turned to the rest of the group as I got up. “Thank you, guys, too.”

“Of course,” Civa spoke, looking at me with more strength in her voice. “You need to get back to your mother, while the rest of us should get back to our families, too. Dima, can you bring Harvoth back since your parents and sister are already there?”

He shifted closer to me as she spoke, wrapping an arm around my shoulders to support me as he responded. I noticed he had been looking at the families arriving, then glancing back to where his sister was healing, obviously relieved.

“Yeah, yeah, I can do that.”

“Good, then I’ll take Ordo back to his family with Vica and me, since I saw his parents close by. Sound good?”

“Yes, ma’am.” We all said half-joking, half-serious.

She gave us all a sad but relieved smile as she rolled up her sleeves, took a deep breath, and exhaled. Dima grabbed my arm to help me forward while Vica and Ordo got beside Civa, readying ourselves to leave before Civa spoke once more.

“Wait, before we all go, let’s do one more thing.”

She put her hand out, face down in the center of all of us, and I gave her a smile, putting my own hand out on top of hers. Dima, Ordo, and Vica all followed suit. Each of us channeled just a bit of our own mana into our tusks and spoke together using WorldSpeech.

“For the Sanctum, the Starmoss tree, and our people, we’ll create a better future.”

While it was a bit of a silly mantra, we had stuck with it over time since Civa had come up with it years ago, and it meant a lot to us. We used WorldSpeech because we were declaring our intentions to the world, and while it potentially wasted some mana, it felt worthwhile to do.

“Everyone, be safe,” Civa said, all of us nodding in return and taking back our hands now that we were done. A moment passed as none of us moved, before Civa leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, leaving me stunned before saying bye and going off with Ordo and Vica.

I was stuck in place as the lingering warmth on my cheek faded. That was our first kiss.

“Lucky man,” Dima said, giving me a goofy smile, elbowing me lightly in the ribs, causing me to wake up and chuckle as I looked at Civa heading away. She looked back for a second too, giving me a smile as she disappeared into the crowd.

“Alright, let’s go then,” I said, beginning to walk toward where my mother had last been, and I presumed my father was heading there.

“Yeah, I want to be with family now,” Dima responded, walking alongside me.

Up on top of the Starmoss tree, the ancient Forest Troll known as Tusgove Mantleroot, aka Harvoth’s Grandfather, was in the midst of doing a task that he would rate as being in the top 5 hardest things he had done. It had just taken place of the time he had to pacify an angry sulfuric lake that almost drowned him, alongside a band of dipleobins he was escorting, in order to pay off a Golgubak warlord.

Taking charge of the relic of his people and sitting on top of it, while converting all the environmental mana into space mana, was a hard task. What was even harder was attempting to use that mana to teleport the entire relic and the village square, thousands of miles away to the Behemoth mountains, where they would be safe. Of all those things, it paled in comparison to how hard it was to keep doing all of that while his grandson got his first kiss, and he couldn’t make fun of him or make a commemorative painting of the moment.

“The things I do for this village…” He said, shaking his head as his hands moved in patterns that had become muscle memory over hundreds of years, manipulating the mana around him.

While a small section of Tusgove’s mind was focused on missing an important developmental achievement in his grandson's life, the majority of his mind was occupied with the task at hand. Going beyond just connecting with the world and harmonizing with it instead allowed him to understand far more than anyone else in this village did. What that specifically was was identifying the 4 powerful signatures of destruction mana, just outside the village in each cardinal direction, each directing a swarm toward the village. If that was it, Tusgove wouldn’t have been worried, as they were a rank weaker than him, and he would’ve focused on destroying the swarm along with the enemy leaders. The worst thing was the almost hidden 5th mana signature that was at a similar level to Tusgove, which was lying in wait.

He had no idea whether or not that being was aware of him or that he could sense him, but the pure destruction affinity alongside what seemed to be an information-based affinity was enough to prepare for the worst. A combo like that would be deadly, as even though he didn’t know their exact abilities, he surmised it would be related to destroying information, which he would have to come up with a counter for. Even if he did, the rest of the village and his descendants would most likely all die by that point.

That was why he decided to use up one of his World’s Favors that related to space, allowing everyone around the Starmoss tree and itself to be teleported to safety. The amethyst-like earring that held the favor had now been completely used up, allowing him to start the process and help him along with it.

They could always rebuild again. Forest Trolls had been forced to do so countless times before, and he doubted this would be the last one. If only he hadn’t left all of those years ago, maybe they would’ve been more prepared…

“Well, probably not,” He said out loud. “I learned a lot from screwing around and traveling the world, so we probably just would’ve all died if I didn’t do that.”

“Hmph, now that I think about it, going against the village and leaving back then is now helping it! I wish I could rub the fact in those old elders' faces now, but they’re all dead…eh, who cares…I don’t!”

The rumbling of space mana crackling in the air that swirled around the area, and the hum of destructive energy outside blocked out anyone from hearing Tusgove’s ramblings. Luckily, he didn’t have to think much about it anymore as he sensed that his brother’s great, great, great, great, great-grandson had gotten back into the barrier along with that interesting fighting fellow. Now he could finalize the ritual and get the hell out of here!

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