We found Dorthaunzee kneeling before the fountain, praying. Seeing the image of a pious nun—man, I felt guilty that we were about to deliver some bad news.

Just then, someone nudged my arm. I looked at Elma.

“Hey, we’re going to tell her, and we will comfort her if need be. It will be fine.”

“You’re right... Hey Dorthaunzee, we need to speak with you.”

She looked at us—her eyes were so bright.

So, we told her that her tentacles accidentally killed three innocent people. (Of course, we did it gently with Svilran and her aura leading the charge.)Throughout it all, I watched as her eyes went from surprise to teary until she was rubbing her eyes and sniffling. It was hard for us too. She had connected mushrooms to us so that we could communicate. Thanks to that, her feelings were coming through to us very clearly. 

She was hurting. We kept an eye for tentacles too, thinking they might react, but nothing came out. All we had before us was a crying young lady whose pain we were painfully aware of. She was still crying and kneeling when I kneeled with her.

“Hey, listen.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes. “It was an accident.” I held her hand, and she tightened her grip on it. “You’re not a bad person. None of us think that.”

“But I hurt people,” was the first feeling we got.

“It’s more my fault than it is yours, Dorthaunzee,” Elma said. “I told you to weaponize your tentacles.” Dorthaunzee shook her head, but Elma directed her next question to Svilran. “Can I not transfer my Hero Merit to Dorthaunzee? She shouldn’t have to suffer so many deductions because of my direction.”

Svilran, glum, shook her head. “No. That is not possible. Hero Merit can not be passed between Heroes.”

“Elma, don’t bother fighting the rules beyond that,” I said. “Dorthaunzee, listen, we don’t want to forget what happened here. We don’t want you to either. We all know you’re a good person. We want you to keep doing your best.”

“And remember Dorthaunzee,” Elma said, “we were fighting a tough opponent in that assassin. We relied on you because it was the best shot we had at the time. The best way to prevent something like that from happening is—actually, can you answer what the best way is?”

Dorthaunzee nodded. Her eyes began reflecting strength. 

“Become better Heroes!” was the feeling she conveyed, extracting smiles from us.

“That’s right,” Elma said. “If we’re strong enough, we won’t have to rely on a power we can’t control. Zee, are you committed to being the best Hero you can be despite this accident?”

Dorthaunzee nodded many times, especially delighted by her new nickname. She quickly turned to me and hugged me. I was surprised at first, but I hugged her back. She was still sad, but there were other emotions mixed in there—too many for me to comprehend. It felt like that hug went on for many minutes, but it couldn’t have. Regardless, I was happy.

“... We’re all in this together.” I looked at Svilran, who looked like she was about to shed tears of relief. “This wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.”

Svilran grinned as tears slipped out of her eyes. “They’re our wonderful Heroes, after all. They have reservoirs of strength that would amaze gods.”

“And we can actually confirm that.”

Afterward, Dorthaunzee asked for a few moments so that she could pray for the fallen. We all followed her lead and prayed along with her. I personally didn’t want to foster the idea that killing innocent people in the service of a mission was something we could just pray away, but I was certain these girls wouldn’t dare think that. 

Even now, we could all feel that truth radiating from Dorth. She was staying strong, but she had deep regrets... Only time would tell whether those regrets would serve as fuel or weights.

***

After ensuring Dorthaunzee was comfortable, we went over their final point values and thanked them for their hard work. It was then that Svilran revealed something that I myself missed—a letter from the Hero, Rodan.

Elma reacted with surprise.

“The Hero sent us a letter?”

And Dorthaunzee reacted with excited clapping.

“The Hero cast his wish into the stars, and this is how it reached us—his Letter of Thanks,” Svilran said. “I want us all to hear what he said and remember why we act and try to persevere, no matter how many personal setbacks we suffer.”

With that, Svilran began reading the letter in earnest.

“I don’t know who you were, but thank you for helping me! I swear! I won’t waste the chance you gave me! And don’t worry about the destruction in the slums! It was a hard fight! My party and I will do our best to help the relief efforts! You, whoever you were, thank you for saving me! I’ll save a thousand people in return! I promise!”

Hearing the Hero’s thoughts put smiles on our faces. We were certainly in a strange position, but we knew we were doing meaningful work.

“So,” I cautiously said, “I know we just got over some heavy stuff, but I thought we should do something to commemorate this—you two returning after a kind of scary mission. Maybe we can also dedicate this to the lives lost in the process.”

“That feels a little weird, Fainn,” Svilran said with a complicated look on her face.

“We can’t just mope around forever. Life is going to go on, and we’re going to still experience difficulties.”

“I agree,” Elma said. “It’s a little awkward, but we have to carry on. It’s okay to enjoy bouts of happiness amidst the tribulations. We can’t just bar moments of levity, especially considering we have to go back to work in a few days’ time... There might come a day where we wish we could carve out some time to celebrate. So...” Elma smiled at us after looking up at the sky. “I think we should take advantage of any happy moments we can make. When things get hard, these moments might be what we all fall back on to keep us upright.”

Dorthaunzee jumped up, and a thought reached us. 

“Could we make a goal? Develop the Hero Hub so that we can learn more about a world’s afterlife?”

I may have filled in some of the parts there. Anyway, some other feelings reached me. I couldn’t put them all into words, but I got some idea..

“You want to give the dead peace...” I said. “I don’t see why not. Saving both the living and the dead—I think that’s something pretty heroic.”

“Agreed,” Elma followed.

“I like the idea too,” Svilran said. “But at the moment, none of the facilities we can build let us do that.”

I wore a smile. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We have time to figure it out.”

And so, we all came to an agreement—we had a new goal—figure out more about the afterlives of the worlds. Considering what Svilran mentioned before about the possibility of evil tainting some afterlives, it made me confident there was a way to do it. After all, if afterlives were being targeted, then we needed to be able to save them.

“The living should remember the dead, not be chained by them!”

That thought from Dorthaunzee was a welcome way to cap off the moment. With her blessing, I told the girls what I thought we could do to celebrate their victory.

“I looked at what we could build. There’s this building called a <Mess Hall>. It offers facilities for residents to cook in, but the more unique feature is that it has certain meals you can get in exchange for Resource Points.” I grinned. “How about we pick one of those meals— The Feast?”

The girls, though we had just gotten past a sad moment, responded with curiosity and wonder. Carried by that feeling, the girls and I went to the northeastern section of the Hub. 

There, I opened up the Build Menu with Svilran watching me and selected the <Mess Hall>. This was our first official build, so both she and I were curious about how it would work.

It all began with an incredible display of light. The perimeter of the building was outlined, and then blocks of light would form in the sky and then land on the ground, where they then settled.

We were all captivated by the display. But as we quickly realized, this was going to take a while. Investigating the Build Menu revealed it would take four hours for the building to be completed. We had been able to avoid build-times before—most likely—because of Svilran’s deific power.

We didn’t really mind, though. We all just kind of sat and watched the structure form with the kind of wonder a child would have. While we sat, we also talked more about the last mission. Elma was very set on trying to figure out what they would need to improve on. Unfortunately, we still didn’t have anywhere we could use the Hero Merit, but Elma was happy to be accumulating the currency.

Dorthaunzee was also very active in the conversation and was hopeful she could use her Hero Merit for something worthwhile later.

Four hours later, the <Mess Hall> was complete. It looked like a wood lodge and had a couple of stone chimneys at the back. It really made me feel like we had to plant some trees around it.

I walked up to the building and glanced over my shoulder. “Well, everyone ready to check it out?”

Sebas_Guzman

Sorry for the delay! I thought I had uploaded this on Friday, but I didn't commit it! Imagine my surprise when I realized. Anyway, here we are! End of Aftermath with the team resolving the stuff Fainn was afraid of. It went better than Fainn expected, huh? Yeah, the intention here was to show that Fainn might be a little more vulnerable to fear. Imagine if Svilran wasn't there. Would it have been worse?

Anyway, Fainn said it best when he mentioned it wasn't as bad as he feared. Anyway, the next chapter or two will feature Dorth's POV. What exactly did she think and how much did Fainn miss?

 

Oh! I almost forgot. They got a letter from the Hero! I have an idea about this feature that we might be able to take advantage of in the future.