It wasn’t hard to find Willow for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it was very large. It towered almost four stories tall above the ruined outer district of Ardgour. Secondly, there was a shitload of noise coming from somewhere around it, and finally, the Silver Ridge airship was docked at a nearby tower that was somehow still standing.

We wove our way through rubble and around the broken remains of the houses and shops that were demolished in the battle. Great gashes carved their way through the city where the beetles had unleashed their deadly beams of magical energy. If it weren’t for the hillside catching them, the beams would’ve sliced their way through massive swaths of the city. As it stood, the hill was gored and its soil melted to glass.

The damage to Ardgour was honestly tiny compared to what’d been done to some of the other cities. North in the Kingdom of Tatonia, the city of Felbore was almost beyond repair. The great fortress—which used to guard the human realms from the unholy monsters crawling up out of the Felbore sinkhole—had been utterly destroyed.

I had a feeling that Felbore would become a huge problem down the line if all the players went off to do expansion content.

The closer we got to our tree, the louder and more discernible the noise became. Pretty soon, it was obvious what was happening. The players were throwing a party in the huge public baths—or, well, what was left of them anyway.

“Man, kinda sucks that the baths are fucked,” Ethan commented as we began to make our way through the crowds.

All of a sudden, I realised that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I found myself vaguely comfortable with the idea of going swimming. In the past, whether in the game or outside it, I’d hated the idea of wearing nothing but swimming trunks in front of tons of other people. Now, putting on a bikini didn’t seem so bad.

Most of the buildings that made up the bathing facilities were all but annihilated by the siege, and their rubble cluttered the thoroughfares and pools. Funny thing about the water here and in the city generally—it was enchanted to grant a health regen and cleanliness buff. It looked like the magically charged water was attempting to clean itself.

Right in the centre of the baths, our huge tree was busy luxuriating in the water with its massive downwards-facing mouth taking periodic sips. People were weary of approaching too close, especially because Willow’s children were splayed out around the large behemoth. They weren’t actually doing anything, but the twiggy undead dryads were creepy as heck, so it wasn’t hard to understand people’s aversion.

I don’t know if it was because they used to be my friends or because I was already on edge due to their airship being parked nearby, but I spotted the Silver Ridge players right away. They were practically holding court at the base of the tower where their airship was moored. Players clustered around them like bees swarming their queen.

“Let’s hurry up and board Willow,” I said quietly.

Both Ethan and Paisley nodded quick agreement. They’d seen them too.

“Hey Willow!” I called, hoping nobody would notice me talking to the tree. “Can you kneel so we can hop up? We haven’t finished the lift yet, sorry.”

“Of course, little flitling,” Willow rumbled, causing an immediate hush to ripple out from it like a wave. Ah, fuck. “That battle was glorious! My saplings and I have glutted our bellies! So many souls to devour, and the vile fae that directed the fungal masses tasted divine. I must have more of them. This water is also quite something. It has a certain… zest. It bubbles upon contact with the tongue in quite an intriguing way.”

“Oh, geez,” Paisley muttered, while Elena stifled a giggle beside me. The expressions on the people around us when they realised that Willow could speak and liked to devour souls… I snapped a screenshot.

Thankfully, Willow was gracefully kneeling in the pool now, so we were able to start climbing up the side of it.

Not so thankfully, I heard someone say, “Yo, who are you guys? That’s your tree?”

“Yes, it is,” mum said with that gentle, kind voice she always uses on strangers. “We’re building an Inn on top of it called the—” she paused and glanced at the rest of our group, a spark of inspiration in her eyes. “The Galloping Willow. We’ll be taking it up to the expansion zone when it’s released.”

“Is it even safe to have that thing in here? It said it eats souls,” a feminine voice asked, and I grimaced. I knew that voice. Arca, one of a dozen women in Silver Ridge and certified drama queen pick-me.

Looking in her direction, I saw a few of their guild members had ambled over from their little party. Tysian was right behind his girlfriend, his chunky shoulder pads were hard to miss with their obnoxiously mirror-bright silver sheen. Then, of course, Marlon was further back in the crowd, arms crossed in front of him.

“The Galloping Willow is no more dangerous to this city than any other guild vehicle with weaponry,” mum said pleasantly. “Regardless, we’ll be leaving soon. It’ll be no problem!”

“Guild vehicle?” Arca asked, long black wolf ears flicking with annoyance. “What guild? We’ve never seen any of you before.”

Despite the belligerent healer’s tone, mum kept hers polite and vaguely cheerful. “The Willow Guard! We’re new, obviously. I’m the guild leader, Fiona, and the rest of the guild is made up of my daughter and her friends. We’re a small group, no need to pay us any mind.”

“Except you have a bunch of assholes in your guild.” Arca sneered, shooting a pointed look at Ethan and Paisley.

“Hey now, there’s no need for nastiness,” Mum said slowly, her tone cooling noticeably.

Oh, mum. She was so kind and mature in social situations, and very experienced when it comes to dealing with shitty, grumpy people. She wasn’t, however, very good with people who didn’t have a conversation or disagreement in good faith. I recognised Arca’s manipulative process from a mile away, and so I acted.

Stepping around my mother, I walked right up to Arca and pulled open a player interaction menu. She stood there, bewildered until the glowing duelling banner slammed down between us and she got the notification.

“Stop talking shit and square up,” I said casually. “Well, or just fuck off. We’re tired and we have way better shit to do than listen to this.”

“Tough little DPS, challenging a healer,” a voice from the crowd called sarcastically. Fucking Marlon.

“What? She’s the one who was hating on my friends, so she’s the one who gets the duel request. I’ll duel literally anyone from you lot, though,” I replied. “Doesn’t matter to me, so long as it settles this weird beef you seem to have with us.”

“Keiko, this won’t settle anything,” said Mum softly in my ear, hand coming to rest on my shoulder.

Grimacing, I shrug and turn slightly to whisper back. “I know, but talking to Arca won’t help either, and I don’t want to give Silver Ridge a chance to start dragging our name through the mud by backing off.”

“Ugh, this is why I stopped playing online games for so long,” Mum muttered, taking her hand back off my shoulder. “High school drama, without the education.”

Noah, always on alert to slip in a wise-crack, said, at normal volume, “I doubt any of them got the education the first time around either.”

"Fine," Marlon all but shouts, bulling his way forward through the crowd. "Arca, decline the duel. I'll do it. Can't have any of our guild losing to a bunch of quitters and nobodies."

The duelling banner disappeared, and in its place, a second one dropped out of the ground with a clang. A notification popped up in my vision simultaneously.

Marlon challenges you to a duel!
Participating parties have a greater than 5 levels of difference. Level scaling enabled.

"Level scaling!" Marlon barked, flashing the crowd a fake smile. "I have to fight this snotty little newbie with level scaling enabled. What a joke."

Ignoring him, I reached out and hovered my finger over the accept button. Marlon was a high tier raid tank which meant he could take a ton of hits, but could also do a sizable amount of damage if given the opportunity. Thankfully, my build was set up purely to deal with creatures—and players—like him.

His armour was different from what I remembered. Today, he wore silvered steel plate with black enamelled accents, but over the top was a thick leather coat with a large upturned collar. On his head, instead of a helmet he had an age-of-sail style tricorn hat. He looked like some sort of wannabe crossover between a knight and an imperial european ship captain. It wasn’t really a bad look either. He had style, even if his tastes trended way too close to Hugo Boss.

Well, I guess I was going to have to fight this cheating slab of asshole. No time like the present!

Duel accepted!
Beginning in 3…2…1…