Hmm? Want to hear a story, you say?

20 years ago, A rise in encounters with spirits was reported. When I say spirits, I mean those from the Outrealms, those who hail from realms like the Faescape, Elemental Seas and even the Myriad Afterlives.

While most of them were benign and wished to be left alone, or were plainly tourists that would even help out, there were also those that were mischievous, rowdy and in a few rare cases, blatantly hostile, which were what the Guild had to deal with.

For a while, there was a honeymoon period of having an increased number of commissions, since it had yet to have overly adverse effects beyond what the Guild could handle. Experts speculated on the cause of this and came up with many theories. The Moontide. Astral Conjunction. And so on and so forth- what most of them did agree on, was that it should be a temporary situation.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

The situation eventually worsened. Soon, we were no longer looking at a simple rise in encounters. At some point, we started receiving reports of entire hosts of spirits being spotted roaming in the wilderness, with no clue of where they poured out from, and more and more of them made their way to civilisation.

The real problem was that the material realm was never meant to accommodate so many Outrealm spirits, and the land began twisting underneath their feet as they imposed unto the soil 'a touch of home', turning common foliage into alien landscapes, which could range from ethereal, enchanting jungles filled with twisted brambles and deadly plant life to plainly hostile seas of fire with constantly steaming hills of ice.

It could be beautiful in certain instances, but it stopped being so once entire villages were forced to flee the unending march of spirits ruining their pastures and fields by their simple presence.

After the Island City of Largnaird started to look like a fairyland, a national emergency was finally declared. The March of Spirits had officially begun.

At that moment, we needed everyone we had to drive them back, but even in the best of circumstances, it was a risky endeavour. 

The spirits came in all sorts of shapes and forms, and scores of them were truly unpredictable, especially when we needed different tactics to take down each one. You couldn't just throw a fireball into a crowd of spirits to disperse them if there was a single fire elemental that could possibly reflect it.

Those who did sign up received double pay. I was one of them, but it was more because I was stuck there- the teleportation circles had been shut down by the interference from the thick miasma of Outrealm energies, while any airship was likely to be shot down.

We were forced to stand our ground, otherwise, there would be no ground to stand on very soon.

I...don't remember how long it went on. My experiences started blending together after a few days. But, I do remember clearly how it ended.

It did the day a massive butterfly, bigger than anything I had ever seen flew across the city. The hosts of spirits, all immediately turned tail and fled. Those Outrealm spirits that had allied with us were strangely free from this compulsion, and though we didn't know why, no one was complaining when they had proven themselves by aiding us against their own brethren.

The March of Spirits was over, and it was time to rebuild. While the Outrealm spirits were gone, the hellscapes they left remained, maintained by the lingering energies.

Thankfully the natural spirits- those of our realm were more than happy to help.

By imposing the laws of their land on ours, the Outrealm spirits had forced the natural spirits into pockets of their former domains. Now that they had left, reclaiming the land and reversing the twisting by reimposing the laws of the material realm was an easy task.

It also helped that the Outrealm spirits that remained could also help dispel the energies.

A few months after the March of Spirits, adventurers started receiving butterflies. I received mine a few more months after that.

By now, you should be able to form your own theories of where the butterflies came from- you should have seen the betting pool back then, though there are a few things that we are more certain of now, through some investigation by intrepid adventurers:

1. The Queen has a contract with certain powers of the Outrealms.
2. The exact details of the contract are not known, but we do know that the Outrealm powers are obliged to do their part in contributing butterflies and sustaining the network- which uses the Outrealms as the connection medium in some form.
3. The butterflies are partially composed of spiritual energy from the Outrealms.

Still, there are other theories and furious discussion on the topic. Perhaps we all are wrong and don't know it yet.

Some of you might be wondering why your butterflies seem so dull while others have butterflies with such lively personalities- from what my own butterfly told me, the spiritual energy contributed can have an effect on the personality developed by the butterfly. Perhaps some Outrealm spirits decided to inject a bit of themselves in the spiritual energy they contributed, while for others it just bled through. All theories, though.

Now, the key question- why adventurers in particular? Nowadays they give butterflies to each adventurer, but even if an adventurer could potentially be important, surely not all of them are, right? How about the intellectuals? The nobility?

The answer is that it is part of the contract. Who placed that condition? The Outrealm powers, the Queen, or both? Why that condition? Who knows. Maybe they want the Outrealm spirits to learn more about the material realm? I suspect the truth is more complex than we can imagine. 

The contract, being magical, also has its ways of assessing someone as a 'true' adventurer, apparently.

There are those who are nominally part of the guild but never had a butterfly manifest, while for others it appears immediately for them. How is it even possible to quantify someone's quality as an adventurer?

Again, no one knows. Probably by some Outrealm standard than by empirical standard, considering I've known people who are better adventurers than me and still don't have a butterfly. Kind of irks me, really, especially considering some asshats judge those without butterflies as being 'lesser' adventurers. As if they were any better...

The only way around this is to buy a contract for a butterfly, but you need to:

1. Be a veteran adventurer with multiple deeds under your belt
2. Have a lot of gold.

Very few have managed to do this so far, but those that do are heralded for being an Adventurer of Old, those that have faced the challenges of being an adventurer before the existence of the support network given by the butterflies. Come to think of it, I count as one, huh?

Well, no point in meandering. It is what it is, and at the end of the day, the guild received an important new tool that has greatly supported its endeavours, which is ultimately for the better.

I end this story by leaving you with a saying that you might have seen being thrown around the guild.

May your path to the stars be trailed by the beat of butterfly wings.