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“Sarrial,” Nemus whispered in her ear. “You should not be idling.”
“I know that,” Sarrial snapped, looking down at the five figures standing frozen outside the borders of the new Moonrise.
“This is your vengeance, is it not?” Nemus persisted. “After years of preparation, you must not let them get in the way.”
Sarrial walked over to a small hidden chest, opening it and drawing a dark leather tunic.
“What do I care if they return? They did not take their time…their resources must be dwindling. There is no need for me to hurry; the people of Reun are done for. Finally…I will be rid of them all.”
“Just as you were rid of Lucus?” Nemus grinned darkly.
Sarrial clenched her teeth as she whirled around, shooting an arrow at Nemus. It passed through his body, clattering to the floor on the other side of the room.
“You are losing control,” Nemus said, his chest completely untouched. “Lucus is gone now…but you are still not free of him, are you? If you do nothing, you will never be free.”
Sarrial’s hands were still on the bow. “You underestimate me, Nemus. It will take time, but I will finish my plan. The people of Reun will not die as Lucus did…I will kill them, and they will know it.”
There was a strange sound as a figure was teleported into the room with a wave of swirling purple smoke. It was an Enderman, looking around the room, seeing no one but Sarrial. The Enderman had several red gashes.
“It seems the people of Reun are fighting back,” Sarrial said. To the Enderman, she seemed to be talking to no one at all. The Enderman was turning, about to teleport again, when Sarrial lunged forward, cutting through it with two swift strikes. Sarrial took the green pearl it left behind.
“I am ready, Nemus,” Sarrial said to the empty room. She put on the rest of her leather armor, and donned the crest of Reun as she left the chamber.

Sarrial stood on a well-lit obsidian ledge, looking over the shrouded city of Reun. She briefly looked up, seeing her great masterpiece. A huge, floating stretch of land lay above, blocking all the sun from Reun, filling the city with nighttime monsters and stunting the growth of crops. Keeping her arsenal of enchanted blades hidden under her tunic, she dropped an Ender Pearl over the ledge, teleporting to the ground with a burst of energy. The people of Reun were down here, somewhere. It was time to begin the slaughter.

“Look out!” Stig shouted. A creeper had noticed them and was bounding forward. Hylda drew her sword quickly and stabbed the creeper through the heart.
“Back up, everyone,” Wes said. “We don’t want to draw any more attention.”
Stig, Hylda, Talis, North and Wes backed away from the benighted Reun, sitting behind a small hill.
“What do we do now?” North asked. He had grown much stronger by the age of sixteen, but his fear was returning. All of their fears were.
“I don’t know,” Stig sighed. “We have no idea whether anyone in Reun is still alive; Sarrial may have already killed them. She’s had years to prepare, and we’ve just been walking. She’s at a huge tactical advantage.
“Meanwhile, we have no shelter, our safe haven has been wiped out, and we can’t look for survivors because there are a couple hundred monsters in the way. So if anyone else has ideas, now’s the time.”
When no one responded, Stig groaned and leaned against the hill, feeling the hopelessness of the situation sink in.
“Wait,” said Hylda, standing up. “We have some Ender Pearls left, don’t we? If there are any survivors, we can look for some sort of signal. Then we can teleport over there without a problem!”
“We can try,” Talis said, getting up behind Hylda. “I just hope Sarrial doesn’t happen to be watching.”
Stig was laying cobblestones on the ground. “I think sending an explosive over Reun should be a good enough signal.” He proceeded to fill the stone frame with water and carefully place explosives over it. He fired the TNT, flying over Reun and detonating in the air.
The party waited, looking eagerly for a reply. It took nearly ten minutes before something happened; another explosive came from Reun, firing straight up and detonating.
“I saw something!” North said to the others. North had been watching the most intently, his eyes fixed on the sky above Reun.
Stig caught sight of the ash falling over the site of the explosion. “So…there are survivors after all?”
Wes breathed a sigh of relief before taking out his satchel, handing an Ender Pearl to each of them.
“There may be some hope left for us,” Wes said as he stepped back, and then threw the pearl as hard as he could. As the pearl fell, Wes disappeared, leaving nothing but a sliver of light.



Stig was the last to teleport. As he warped into the center of Reun, he found the other four; safe, and waiting for him.
“Where are we?” Stig asked, looking around. They were all crammed in a tiny dirt room.
“As soon as we came here, the swarm of monsters was closing in around us. If it weren’t for North’s quick thinking, we’d have all been dead.” Hylda was sitting in a corner, wiping the blood and marrow from her sword. North nodded proudly when Hylda mentioned his barricade.
“There should be some people here, right?” Stig said. “Let’s try digging down; they’re probably underground.”
“Wait,” Wes hesitated before drawing a shovel. “You and Hylda are still criminals, and Talis is one of the Moonrise. We had better be careful before breaking down their ceiling.”
Talis stuffed his Moonrise insignia into his pocket. He had gone through his own changes over the years; he wasn’t nearly as broad-shouldered as North, but he was much taller and thinner, training every night killing monsters that wandered near their camp. He covered his pale hair with a leather cap as Stig and Hylda disguised themselves as well. Finally, they were ready to dig.

They had only gone down a few meters when North gasped in shock; there was nothing but air underneath them. Wes grabbed North’s arm before he fell.
“I’m all right!” North called up the tunnel. “It’s not a big drop; it looks like a man-made chamber!”
The others jumped down to the floor.
“You’re right,” Wes said as he looked around. “This is definitely not natural. Let’s take this path; we shouldn’t split up in here.”
The path was generally empty, which Stig found to be ridiculous. There was so much wasted space, and so little notable resources. Reun was like that too; it was huge, but with nothing to fill the space. The people there must have been very territorial…or maybe they just didn’t notice. Stig was still hypersensitive to such matters after his time in the cave.
There was a light at the end, brighter than that of the torches lining the wall. Before they could reach it, however, a woman came down the corridor toward them. She had short, dark hair and a small face, and she walked quickly and awkwardly, looking anxious.
“Oh!” the woman jumped as she saw the towering figure of Wes, with Stig, Hylda, North and Talis close behind. “I—I didn’t see you here…who are you??”
“We don’t mean to alarm you,” Wes said. “We sent off a signal over your fort. We…we got lost, and we only just got back to see what happened to Reun.”
The woman looked at them suspiciously. “So…what do you want here?”
“Hopefully, the same as you,” Stig said. “We want to save Reun.”
“Oh…you’re very ambitious,” the woman said nervously. “We could always use a few extra hands. My name’s Tina.”
Tina and Wes shook hands. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tina. I am Wes, but you should already recognize me. This is North, my son. This is Talis; he’s…a friend. And…” Wes looked at Stig and Hylda, unsure.
“You’re the fugitives Stig and Hylda, I know,” Tina said. “Don’t worry. They will be treated as good citizens here.”
“Thanks,” Hylda said. “How many of you are there?”
“Tina, where are you?” a voice called from the room ahead. Stig, Talis and North all jumped. A man even larger than Wes appeared in the corridor, scowling.
“Who are you people?” he said. “Wesley, is that you? What business do you have here?”
“Please, Fenris!” Tina said, shaking. “They want to help!”
The man called Fenris gruffly looked at the five newcomers, the group of misfits who magically appeared at their doorstep.
“I take it you are the ones who sent the signal from outside?”
Stig nodded in assent, stepping in front of Wes. Wes was a bit annoyed, but he had learned full well that Stig was the more diplomatic one. Speaking to a man of power such as Fenris, they could not afford to offend.
“We want to help you,” said Stig. “We were far away when Sarrial apparently took over. Why would we have come back if not to help?”
Fenris studied Stig’s face, and then looked back at Wes. “I suppose I can’t pass up such an offer, can I?” he said. Hylda began to speak, but Fenris cut her off in a harder voice. “Wesley and his son should be reintroduced immediately, given their political stature. You three,” he motioned to Stig, Hylda and Talis, “you’ll be shown to your rooms. Tomorrow, we’ll set you to work.”



“This stinks,” Talis said as he shoveled a huge clump of dirt out of the wall. “Why did we even come here if Fenris is just putting us to grunt work?”
“I know it seems useless, but we’ll have to trust Reun on this one,” Hylda replied. She was in the storage room, organizing the huge mess of resources. “Besides, Wes said he’d talk to Fenris about the three of us. We just have to be patient.”
Stig was working silently. He himself was having trouble moving from freedom to near slavery. Stig was in charge of furnishing, leveling out the ground and replacing the dirt and gravel with cobblestone; he was also charged with making sure the lighting in the cave was right. With only one human looking for them, their cave didn’t need to be very secret.
The door opened behind them, and North stepped in, carrying a bundle of iron shovels.
“Hey guys,” he said. “I’m here to help. It looks like you’re all a little short on equipment.”
“Thanks,” said Talis as North passed him a shovel. “But I thought you were exempt from this labor? They said aristocrats had no physical duties.”
“I’m the monarch’s son, so I can do what I want,” North grinned. “And what I want is to help out. What can I do?”
“Well, there are a few little air pockets in the ground over here,” Talis pointed at the holes in the ground, which he had uncovered while expanding the cave. “We need to fill them up.”
“Where is Wes, anyway?” Stig broke in. “We haven’t seen him for a while.”
“Fenris has been taking up a lot of my father’s time. Our government has changed substantially since Sarrial took over, and Wes isn’t getting the respect he once had.” North dropped into the hole and began filling it up. “At least, that’s what he told me. Tina’s been trying to convince Fenris to give you all a bit of clemency…but she’s too shy to make much of an argument.”
“It’s because he loves power,” Hylda said angrily as she threw a sack of gunpowder into a chest and slammed the lid shut. “He doesn’t listen to Tina, or us. He thinks we’re children.”
“Well, North and I still are,” Talis called from a dark corridor. “Stig, could you give me some light?”
“Fenris isn’t so tough,” Hylda was muttering. “I bet I could take him.”

Wes was walking down a corridor, followed by the few guards still loyal to him. Wes was looking all around the underground Reun, checking for any inadequacies, any signs of weakness in their fortifications. Civil defense was Wes’s strength.
Fenris had already explained that Sarrial lowered the land all around the edge of Reun, trapping the population inside the ruins with a monster-infested darkroom. Fenris had attempted to tunnel out of Reun, but there were too many creatures blocking them from the edge. Wes was walking around the border of the underground city because of this, making sure there was no way the monsters in the darkroom could make it into the cave. The guards behind him were for a worst-case scenario.
There was a sudden growl from the tunnel up ahead. Wes ordered the guards to ready their bows and move toward it. As they came to the corner, Wes saw it: A small hole in the wall, behind which a huge mass of monsters was pouring in.
“Shoot them!” The guards fired their arrows, six shots knocking back the monsters’ front line. Zombies continued to lurch forward, but Wes quickly blocked off the corridor with a layer of cobblestones. The sabotage was stopped.

“Someone…let the creatures through…?” one of the guards was stammering.
“But…they couldn’t have…” said another.
“What are you all talking about?” Wes turned to them, his face sweaty.
“Sir…you and your friends may be in trouble. Fenris…he’s prohibited everyone here from having children. That means that he trusts everyone here because they’ve been here for months. They wouldn’t let the creatures in like this.”
“So he’ll suspect us,” Wes growled. “We’re the only new arrivals.”
One of the guards stepped forward. “We can keep a secret.”
“No,” Wes waved him away. “There are several dozen monsters lurking about in here. We’ll have to be honest about this one, or else Reun is in danger. I can face Fenris.”
Wes thought about Stig, Hylda, Talis and his son. If someone sabotaged the cave, and they were the only suspects, all of them were in trouble. But if the five of them didn’t do it…who did?



Stig and Hylda were finishing the lighting system while Talis and North organized; the work was almost done when Wes burst into the room.
“Get out here,” he said harshly. “Now.”
The five of them quickly ran from the room.
“What’s going on?” Stig demanded.
“There was a leak,” Wes said slowly, breathing heavily from their quick escape. He didn’t speak again until they were safe in a small corner.
“Someone let the monsters through,” Wes continued, once they were safe. “We’re the suspects.”
“Why?” Hylda said angrily. “There are plenty of people here who could’ve done it!”
“None that haven’t already been here for years. I don’t know why, but…Fenris had prevented the citizens of Reun from having children. He won’t allow any newcomers here…that’s why he’ll be coming for us.”
“Can we run?” North asked. “We could face Sarrial on our own.”
“I suppose we have some Ender Pearls left.”
“No,” Stig stepped in. “This is Reun now. We can’t just abandon it. I thought you would agree, Wes.”
Wes stared at Stig for a while. “We’ll sleep on it,” he finally said. “But not in our beds; Fenris may already be coming for us. We can find somewhere safer to spend the night.”
The party split up as several of Fenris’s grunts came down the hall. Stig found an alcove, probably a hollowed mineral vein, on which he laid some wool and drifted into sleep. He was going to be blamed for Reun’s problems again. But this time, he was ready…he was no longer a frightened child.

As soon as Stig woke up, he ran for the main forum of the cave. There were hundreds of people filling the room, and they were talking feverishly. Stig hid behind a large wooden board and began to read it.
THERE HAS BEEN A LEAK. BE ON GUARD FOR MONSTERS IN CORRIDORS. IF ANY OF THE PARTY CONSISTING OF STIG, HYLDA, WESLEY, TALIS AND NORTH IS FOUND, THEY ARE TO BE BROUGHT TO THE FORUM IMMEDIATELY.
Stig stopped reading as the notice board went on to describe their appearance. Everything Wes had warned him about had been true; Stig was relieved, at least, that no one else had been caught yet. Nevertheless, he needed to find them.
Stig sprinted through the maze of corridors, looking for a familiar face. There were two figures at the end of the hall, and Stig approached them carefully…until he noticed that one of them was a skeleton.
“Hold on!” Stig ran forward as the skeleton drew its bow, aiming at the other figure. Stig leapt the last few feet and kicked, breaking through one of the skeleton’s rib-bones.
“Ouch,” Stig winced as he clutched his bruised foot. The skeleton turned to him and backed up, loading another arrow. The other figure just stood there, shaking, clutching her sword. It was Tina.
Stig grabbed Tina’s sword, not daring to draw his diamond pickaxe in Fenris’s territory. Dodging the skeleton’s arrow, he slashed twice and the skeleton’s skull shattered.
Stig was giving the sword back to Tina, but she was still shaking.
“What’s wrong?” Stig suddenly realized why she was so afraid. She had seen the notice board; as far as Tina knew, Stig was a terrorist.
Before Stig could open his mouth again, Tina screamed. “Help me! Fenris, please, help me!”
People poured into the room from all sides. They weren’t guards…they were civilians.
“It’s Stig! Get him!”
“I always knew he was a traitor!”
“I saw him first! The reward is mine!”
A hundred hands grasped at Stig, suffocating him, drowning him…when his pickaxe fell from his satchel. It was the one he had enchanted from the Enderdragon’s own energy, his most prized possession. Already the crowd was lunging for it, fighting to claim it, as Stig was dragged away to Fenris.

Wes was looking for the others as well, when he went back to check the forum. The notice board had changed; a new entry had been added.
STIG HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO JUSTICE
Wes swore. Stig couldn’t have been captured at a worse time…Wes knew who the traitor was.

Stig was grinding his teeth as he was dragged to the center of the forum. Fenris stood over him.
“These people look up to me,” he said. “I have to protect them.”
The crowd burst into shouts of assent.
“So why…why do you and your friends endanger that protection?”
Stig was thrown down to Fenris’s feet. A civilian slowly approached Fenris and gave him Stig’s diamond pickaxe.
“And you’ve even stolen supplies?” Fenris waved the pickaxe over Stig.
“It’s mine,” Stig said angrily. “Why do you even think I’m the one causing all this trouble?”
Fenris scoffed, and then waved his arms around the room. “Who here thinks this newcomer should be held responsible?”
There was silence for a moment. Suddenly, Tina’s voice rose up through the crowd. “I do!” she cried out shakily. “He is guilty!”
A few more people shouted. “He is guilty!” Soon the whole room was thundering with angry cries. Stig’s homeland had turned against him once again.
But this time is different.
Wes shoved his way through the crowd, with Hylda, Talis and North close behind. “He is not guilty.”
“What…?” Fenris growled. Fenris was larger than Wes, but as Wes stepped up to him, Fenris seemed to shrink.
“Fenris, you need to let Stig go.”
“No!” the crowd became enraged.
“Why should I?” Fenris folded his arms. “You are not the monarch. You were playing pretend until Oren showed up. You’re not the leader anymore…these people need someone else to look up to.”
“If I didn’t know Stig as well as I do now, I would be right beside you,” Wes said. “But he is not a traitor…none of us are.” Wes turned to the huge crowd. “You all know that, don’t you?”
A young man about Stig’s age spoke out. “Stig saved us from destruction when the Moonrise attacked Reun! That doesn’t sound like a traitor to me.”
Hylda rose to meet Fenris. “I was there too,” she said. “Stig is a friend of Reun, despite everything he’s been through. Wes, Oren and you have all made his life miserable, and yet he still fought for you.”
More of the crowd was joining Stig. Fenris sensed the commotion and Stig thought he was going to accede…when Fenris drew back his bow and shot the boy in the crowd…the instigator.
“No!” Talis rushed forward, drawing his enchanted bow before Stig could stop him. As Talis drew the bowstring, an arrow materialized in the holster and he fired it into Fenris’s hand.
As Fenris cried out in pain, one of his supporters in the crowd pointed shakily and exclaimed. “He’s a Lunar! The Moonrise is here!”
Talis was knocked over, his bow taken from him and his hands held behind his back, before he could even react. When Talis looked to his side, Wes and North were also being held down.
“So is this why you won’t let any of these people have children?” Wes snarled at Fenris, who was clutching his hand, which had almost been completely run through. “You just don’t want anyone standing up to you. You’re nothing but a power-hungry despot.”
“No,” Fenris glared back, looking just as intimidating. “I stop them from reproducing because I care. We have lost this war, and I will not let anyone else suffer. And now…you are bringing weapons like these into our midst…” Fenris was holding their enchanted armor, bow and pickaxe…everything but Hylda’s sword. “You inspire these people to act rashly, and now you endanger their safety.”
“That’s just stupid!” Hylda exclaimed. Stig wondered why no one had paid attention to her. “You think that giving your citizens hope is a bad thing? If anyone is a traitor to Sarrial, it’s you!”
Fenris still waved her aside. “Matters of politics do not concern you, girl. Go back to your shelter where you belong.”
Hylda immediately reached for her sword, but Stig and Wes both shot her a warning glance. Hylda withdrew her hand, but still didn’t back down.
“Fine,” Fenris said, drawing Talis’s bow in his uninjured hand, Stig’s pickaxe in the other. He pointed them both at Hylda. “You think you would make a better ruler than me? Why don’t you fight me and find out?” His supporters laughed down on Hylda, but the crowd remained silent. They knew well what was happening; Fenris was humiliating Hylda, bluffing her until she fell in line.
“No,” Hylda said. “I’m not going to fight someone who should be on the same side. It’s pointless.”
Hylda turned and began to walk away. Fenris’s supporters laughed again.
“That’s right,” Fenris smirked. “Run away, little girl.”
“Uh oh, here we go…” Stig muttered.
Hylda’s shoulders grew tense. She whirled around as Fenris was holding Stig’s pickaxe toward her. With a powerful kick, Hylda smashed her foot into Fenris’s fingers, causing him to retract the pickaxe in pain. She grabbed the bow in his other hand, crossed his face with her fist, and knocked Fenris’s jaw loose. Fenris’s supporters stared.
Fenris lay on the ground, clutching his jaw and holding his broken fingers to his chest. Hylda turned to the crowd, watching nervously for their reaction. The citizens in the back were crying out in…fear?
Stig, Talis, North and Wes had been let go as the people holding them had begun staring at Hylda as she beat Fenris with her bare fists. But Hylda saw more people in the crowd…too many. Some were in ragged tunics, and others were nothing but bones…
“Run!” Hylda suddenly screamed over the crowd. “The monsters are here!”
It was too late. The people of Reun cried out as the explosions of creepers ripped apart the walls of the room. Whatever hole the creatures had come through, it was big. The crowd ran, tripping over each other, as skeletons fired arrows into the turmoil. Stig and Talis joined Hylda on the podium.
“It’s the end of Reun, isn’t it?” Stig stared at the wall of undead advancing into the room.
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Hylda wrenched the pickaxe and bow from Fenris’s shaking hands and gave them to Stig and Talis. “Wes, North, are you there?”
“I won’t be joining you,” Wes looked up at Hylda. “I know where Sarrial is…and who she is.”
Wes ran off through one of the exits, pushing through the stampeding crowd. Meanwhile, in a dark corridor, having shed her shy visage, Tina grinned darkly.



Stig ran for the corner of the wall, loading an explosive charge to blow a hole through which the crowd could escape. Hylda and Talis followed close behind, watching for Fenris’s supporters or haters of the Moonrise. North pulled off Fenris’s satchel and redistributed their magic items…and Wes disappeared down a long corridor.
Wes ran as fast as he could, catching sight of a dark figure running in front of him. The corridor was empty; there were a couple of undead scaring most people off, but Wes hacked through them with ease.
“Come back!” Wes shouted, but to no avail; either the figure couldn’t hear him, or it was ignoring him. Wes kept his bow holstered; he expected the figure to be Sarrial fleeing the scene, but he did not want to accidentally harm an innocent. Wes had almost caught up when an explosion went off just behind the figure; the wall opened up in front of Wes, and a pair of skeletons trounced in.
Wes rolled under the skeletons’ legs and shattered their bones with his sword, but the figure was getting away. Wes was sure that he or she set off the explosive; there was nothing else for it—drawing his bow, Wes shot at the person.
Stumbling, the figure leapt into the corner of the corridor as the arrow shot past, and Wes cornered the figure. It was Tina.
“W-Wes…!” Tina stared, frightened.
“Tina, is it really you? I…I thought you were one of the invaders. Come on, you need to go to safety with the others.”
Tina began to smile in relief as she accepted Wes’s hand. Wes continued to frown. He slowly reached for his sword…
Tina sensed the motion, as well as Wes’s fake concern. She yanked Wes’s arm and swung him into the wall, then twisted his wrist until he dropped his sword.
“How did you know?” Sarrial demanded, her eyes wide with rage. “How did you know who I am?”
“You were too shy, Sarrial,” Wes grunted. “Tina would not have been that way after three years of survival. If you’re going to choose a new identity, don’t choose one from your own childhood.”
“I was nothing then!” Sarrial snapped. “When I was a girl of Reun, I had no idea what true power was. I’ve grown up since the last time you knew me.”

Twenty years earlier, Sarrial, a timid eight-year-old girl, ran home from her gardening work. Wes stood on the porch of the palace, accompanied by a light-haired young man.
“She is a very promising girl,” Lucus nodded.
Wes was silent, watching the shy girl closely. “She has to connect with Reun more. If she does not, we won’t know whose side she’ll fight for. I hope you can take care of her properly, Lucus. She looks up to you.”
“Of course,” Lucus crossed his arms and grinned, eyes closed. A scrap of paper dangled in his hand…bearing the Moonrise insignia.
Three years later, Reun burned.
“Put out the fires!” The former, younger monarch of Reun stood in the middle of the battle, turning his bow about. “Lucus! Where are you?”
Sarrial, now eleven years old, approached from behind. “Lucus is already gone. I promise you, you will see him soon.” Her voice was still high pitched, but it had a bit of acidity to it.
“Sarrial, why are you out in the streets? It’s hell out here!” The monarch shot a frenzied assassin bearing the Moonrise mark.
“Lucus will protect me.”
“No, Lucus will destroy you. You can’t let him do that.”
“At least he told me the truth!” Sarrial’s eyes were bright with rage and sadness. “He told me about my parents in the Moonrise…how you did those awful things, and then kidnapped me to be one of you! The new Moonrise is returning, and it will envelop you!”
The monarch was silent for a while. “It is a shame you had to choose this path.” He drew his bow and aimed it at Sarrial’s skull, but she ducked under his legs and ran as fast as she could out the gate.

“You were such a sweet girl back then,” Wes said as his grappled wrist turned an unhealthy color.
“No matter what Lucus did to me, he is still responsible for finally showing me the truth.” Sarrial’s tone became acridly seductive. “But I suppose you’re not proud of what I’ve become, Wesley?”
“You poor girl,” Wes lowered his head as the point of a blade pressed against his neck. “All you have felt toward anyone is rage. Now…it is driving you mad.”
Sarrial’s eyed widened as Nemus appeared behind her. “Kill him, Sarrial,” he whispered in her ear. “If you kill him, you will be free of me.”
“Please, don’t,” Wes’s body turned stiff. “Do not let your anger become you.”
Sarrial’s hand quivered as she pulled her sword back, preparing to thrust it forward. Talis appeared in the corridor, seeing Tina for who she really was.
“No!” Talis ran forward and shot an arrow into Sarrial’s arm. As she let go of Wes’s wrist, Wes grabbed his sword and stabbed Sarrial through the stomach. Sarrial began breathing rapidly, but she did not try to dislodge herself from the sword; she took both of her own blades and shoved them through Wes’s shoulders. Yanking the sword out of her, Sarrial turned to Talis, who was aiming another arrow at Sarrial.
“Talis, are you turning against me as well?” Sarrial staggered toward him, wildly swinging her sword to deflect his magic arrows.
“You could have helped me fix the Moonrise,” Talis said, concealing his fear. He was unable to shoot Sarrial, and she had almost reached him. “But you chose to attack my friends, and kill people without any reason to…you turned against us.”
Sarrial cried out in rage and flailed her sword at Talis, who leapt over her and shot an arrow into her back. Seeming not even to notice, Sarrial whirled around and clenched his arm with her nails. Sarrial smashed a sickly potion over Talis’s face, making his arms go limp.
“Nemus, you promised me solitude!” Sarrial cried out as she aimed her bow at Talis, who was trying get up through the poison. “You said you would leave me alone if I killed Wesley!”
“You are almost done,” Nemus whispered in her ear.
As Sarrial’s sword came down, Talis clenched his teeth through the effects of the poison and rolled to the side. He couldn’t beat Sarrial like this.
What would Stig do? Talis backed up as fast as he could as Sarrial began to follow him, her hair unable to cover the grieved look on her face. Wes was recovering from Sarrial’s attack, but he also was in no condition to fight. Talis could only think of one idea; he planted an explosive on the wall, causing Sarrial to gasp in fear. Grabbing some flint and steel from his satchel, Talis struck the fuse on the explosive, and the wall opened up with a thundering crash.
Undead and giant spiders poured out of the darkroom, into the corridor. The wall of monsters had separated Sarrial from Talis and Wes, and Sarrial was forced to flee. Talis grabbed Wes’s arm and they fled the approaching horde.

“Where are the others?” Wes demanded as they ran into the main forum. It was nearly empty, and the only things there were clumps of undead, looking for more targets.
“They went that way,” Talis pointed to a hole in the Forum wall. As they ran, the corridors seemed fairly empty of undead…Stig, Hylda and North had been fighting with great success.
“Where do you think Sarrial went?” Talis was already focusing on the tasks ahead, trying to ignore his wounds.
“She probably teleported back to her citadel,” Wes responded, looking left and right for signs of foes.
“Did you know Sarrial? Back when she was a citizen of Reun? I heard you saying…”
“Yes,” Wes cut him off. “She was a lot like Tina back then. That’s why I was so certain that ‘Tina’ was not who she appeared to be. Sarrial was…complicated. She used to be so easily swayed, but now she has hardened into a hateful monster, trying to work out all the lies she’s been told. No doubt I have told more than my share.”
Talis remained silent.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Wes said. “So much of Sarrial’s rage is my own fault…I need to put things right.”
Wes and Talis saw three figures running through the corridor; they were much too fast to be undead.
“Hey!” Talis called ahead to Stig, Hylda and North. “Slow down a bit! It’s us!”
Talis caught up with the others, panting. Wes appeared behind him. They both had nasty looking wounds.
“It looks like you two had a hard time,” Hylda said.
“We had a bit of a run-in with Sarrial,” Talis replied as his adrenaline subsided; he had begun to notice the pain in his wounds.
“We had better find a safe place to rest,” Stig said. He had three bloody marks on his arm where arrows had hit. “Let’s hurry to the surface; maybe we can hide out in one of Sarrial’s spires.”
“What happened to all the citizens?”
“We found a few rooms that hadn’t been penetrated by the undead. We made sure all the citizens were safe and had food, and that their housing was stable. They should be fine while we face Sarrial.”
The party quickly finished digging up to the surface. They were quite far away from the nearest spire. As soon as they came up to the surface, a horde of monsters closed in on them.
“Wes, grab the Ender Pearls!” Hylda said as she slashed through a pair of zombies. Wes reached for his satchel and found it stolen.
“Sarrial!” Wes cursed. “She swiped my items while I wasn’t looking! We don’t have any pearls, and not enough scaffolding to build a barricade.”
Stig slammed his pickaxe into the head of a spider. “Then let’s make a run for it!”
The five of them ran as fast as they could through wave after wave of undead, spiders and creepers. Sarrial watched them run from the balcony of the main tower, with Nemus looming behind her.
“They’re going to make it,” Sarrial said with amazement.
“No,” Nemus said. “You still have control. Finish them!”
Sarrial shakily drew her bow and fired it.

The arrow lodged in Wes’s back, and he fell to the ground. The horde was already surrounding him before he could get up.
North turned around and cried out in shock. He ran forward to help his father, but Wes held up his hand.
“Go to the spire,” Wes said. “You can still defeat Sarrial.” Zombies sank their teeth into Wes’s back, but Wes continued to glare at them, willing them to escape.
North didn’t listen. He charged forward, but Wes had already died. North hacked wildly at the undead gnawing on his father, but Hylda grabbed North’s arm and ran to the spire. As they tore through the last wave of undead while dodging Sarrial’s arrows, North stared at Wes’s body until the door of the spire shut behind them.



North fell to his knees as the spire went dark around them. Stig lit a torch and looked around; the party was devastated at the sight of Wes’s death, and crippled with an assortment of injuries. The door locked behind them; North threw himself at the door, gripping his sword and screaming obscenities at the undead shambling around.
“Just stop it, North,” Hylda pulled him away from the door as he prepared to attack it again. “We’re not going to get anywhere like this.”
North turned at Hylda, shaking with fear and anger. He realized that Hylda was also crying silently…she had also seen Wes die.
Stig looked furiously at the top of the spire. “It was Sarrial,” he said weakly. “She shot Wes while we were running.”
North shrunk, nearly vomiting from the memory of Wes being devoured. Despite his trembling, his eyes were fiery. “We have to kill Sarrial,” he said as he forced his body to stay still.
Hylda eyed a large burn on her side from a creeper’s attack. “We can’t fight Sarrial like this…we don’t even have any food.”
Stig noticed several of his own wounds, which seemed to open up as soon as he realized them. Finding a good place to sit where his wounds wouldn’t brush against the hard walls of the Spire, Stig caught Hylda’s eye. “This isn’t like you, Hylda,” he said. “You never give up hope. Wes wouldn’t want you to now.”
Hylda remained silent, but North stood up angrily. “What hope is there to lose? We could never win this fight to begin with! My father tried to fight the impossible…and it killed him.” North’s shivering returned, forcing him to sit back down. Talis, sitting down next to Hylda, was obviously irritated by the outburst.
“He’s just scared,” Hylda whispered to Talis. “Remember where he comes from…Stig and I have seen our share of hardships, and you’re a trained assassin. I doubt North has been through anything like this before.”
Talis looked down gloomily at his bow, remaining silent. Wes had given him that enchanted bow, and Talis had failed to kill Sarrial with it when he had a chance. Looking around, Talis realized that everyone believed Wes’s death to be of their own individual faults.
“Come on,” said Talis, striding across the room and helping North to his feet. Talis’s voice was shaky, but just as strong as ever. “We can’t stay down here forever. We’ll head up to Sarrial’s fortress. If we need food, we steal it.”
Stig eyed a plump red eyeball from the carcass of a giant spider. He was so hungry from all the fighting that he could probably eat it…but it would be hard to survive the poison. “How do you know that this spire leads up to her fortress?”
Talis shrugged. “I’ve seen the architecture of the Moonrise. Besides, why would Sarrial build a spire for her floating death-tower and not put in any stairs?”
Hylda felt around the wall until her hand brushed a wooden rung. “I found a way up! It’s a secret ladder…maybe that’s why Sarrial wants this place so dark.”
Hylda immediately began climbing, followed by Talis. Stig looked apprehensively at North, whose expression was still twisted in fear and anger. “Are you ready?” Stig asked cautiously. North wordlessly grabbed the ladder and pulled his body up forcefully.
The spire seemed to get even darker as they climbed. A red glow emanated from beneath them; Stig was waving a redstone torch around the walls, hoping to activate any secret mechanisms. They would be safe from traps; the party couldn’t be harmed from behind the obsidian walls. Obsidian was such a hard substance that the spires must have taken hours to mine…but Sarrial had a steel focus and a lot of time on her hands.
The narrow light at the top of the spire grew larger and brighter until Hylda clambered out of the hole, with the others following. Looking around as he emerged, Stig saw that the fortress was horribly featureless; it was an asylum of dark walls and polished stone floors. Stig quickly warned the others to watch where they stepped; Sarrial wouldn’t have made the floors so smooth unless she planned to install an easily-hidden pressure plate. So that was why the fortress was so huge…anyone who entered would have to traverse layers upon layers of traps.
“Should we stay together or split up?” Hylda jumped carefully across the floor until she stood on panes of glass, providing an overhead view of the destroyed Reun.
“We can’t split up,” Stig immediately said. “That will multiply the chances of Sarrial finding us, and none of us can take her on alone. We’ll have to take the slow and steady approach.”
Stig had barely started down the first corridor when he found the stone to be slightly raised underneath him. Carefully sliding his fingers under the crevice, Stig pulled up the pressure plate and called the others to him. “Well, that was our first trap,” Hylda said, taking the plate and stuffing it into her satchel.
“I don’t know if this will help, but I can see if I can loot anything from this trap.” Stig broke open the wall with his diamond pickaxe, looking for anything that might have fired arrows or fireballs when revealed. Strangely, there were none; Stig broke open the ground and found a system of three pistons. So the trap wasn’t meant to launch anything; it was meant to open up the ground and send the target plummeting. Stig sighed in disappointment at the lack of available weapons. Sarrial would never have left her powerful items out in the open. Stig pulled out the pistons anyway and put them in his satchel.
“Come on,” Talis was already at the end of the corridor. “There are only a couple other traps.”
“What do we do now?” Hylda asked as they jumped around the other hidden pressure plates.
“Our first task is not to starve…we’ll have to find where Sarrial is getting her food,” Stig responded as he looked quickly down the corridor for signs of danger. “Unfortunately, she’s probably hidden it well.”
As they reached the intersection, Stig began scanning the walls again with his redstone torch; either there was nothing, or Sarrial had hidden it beyond his range. The intersection led into a huge expanse of rooms with minimal walls, as well as a few other corridors leading to the tips of other spires. All four of them jumped when they heard the clatter of a sword from up above and Sarrial’s voice…it sounded like she was speaking with someone. Talis ducked into an alcove and beckoned the others.
“Well, we’re in a huge, hostile climate, with a powerful enemy after us and no food,” said Stig. “It’s time to survive.”
As Stig, Hylda and Talis prepared for their final ordeal, North looked blankly at the room. He wasn’t an idiot…he knew that they couldn’t fight Sarrial without getting food and healing their wounds. But with his father’s murderer just a single room away, North felt a tugging of rage and ambition at his chest…Sarrial would pay.

Sarrial stared down at the spire which Stig, Hylda, North and Talis had escaped to. Nemus sat behind her, looking amused.
“You will never get anywhere if you continue to fail like this,” Nemus teased darkly. Sarrial whipped her sword at Nemus, who disappeared and reappeared behind her.
“That’s over sixty times you’ve tried to kill me,” Nemus said. “I don’t think you realize what I am. I can’t help you if you refuse to accept my advice.”
“Yes…” Sarrial lowered her sword. Nemus’s gaze penetrated her secretive mind. “I’m…sorry.”
Nemus looked down condescendingly. “So…you have four starving children in your fortress, trying to kill you. I don’t think you will fare too well against them once they are fully healed.”
“Yes…they will be looking for food,” Sarrial said, contemplating the structure of her fortress. “I will set fire to my crops. My strength will outlast theirs.”
Nemus laughed; it was a horrible, guttural sound. “Ensuring your own death just to kill off your foes? You may just be worth my time.” Sarrial opened up her storage chest and took the bread and stew from their respective compartments. She couldn’t risk her enemies finding them…Sarrial kept a few pieces of bread in her satchel and threw the rest into the fireplace in the center of the room. The dreary, rectangular box flashed brightly as the food sogged into the ground. Sarrial took a charred set of flint rocks and went to her farm. Her enemies would starve…she would make sure of that.



“We need a place to hide,” Stig whispered from the alcove as Talis held his breath, looking with dread at the room from which they had heard Sarrial’s ranting. “Sarrial probably knows this place inside and out. We’ll need to quickly mine out a new room to stay in for now.
“Hylda, you’re the most likely to survive an encounter with Sarrial; take a pickaxe and grab some stone from the chamber we came through. If we can’t get enough obsidian from these walls, we’ll have to use cobblestones.” Hylda hesitantly ran from the alcove to collect stone, carefully avoiding the camouflaged pressure plates and mining under them, making sure not to fall through into the darkness.
Stig ran his fingers over a large obsidian wall. “I’ll dig out this wall and use Hylda’s cobblestones to make an alcove that Sarrial doesn’t know about. If we replace the wall, it’ll be like we were never here.”
Talis stayed close to Stig and aimed his bow at any possible danger, while Stig broke open the wall. The hard obsidian slowly succumbed to the enchanted diamond chisel. Stig was relieved to turn from his work to see Hylda returning, her satchel full.
“Did you see Sarrial on your way?” Stig asked as he took the cobblestones and fashioned a cramped platform jutting from the side of Sarrial’s fortress.
Hylda shook her head. “She must know we’re here. Why isn’t she looking for us?”
Stig absent-mindedly considered the question as he continued to lay cobblestones. Stig was hungry, and wanted to focus on his work. North thought similarly; he stayed away from the others, watching the dim lights of the fortress tint the iron of his sword. The urgency of the situation tugged at the back of North’s mind, but he could not stop thinking about his father and the murderer Sarrial. North was annoyed by the thought of being held back from his revenge.
Stig placed a torch in the little alcove and beckoned the others in, then replaced the broken obsidian wall.
“We did it,” Stig said as he placed his hand on the wall of the cramped room. “We’re off the map.”
Hylda wiped the sweat from her brow as the enclosed space took a toll on the party’s well-being. This must be how the survivors of Reun must feel. Hylda thought anxiously of the underground Reun, overrun by monsters and with only a few safe rooms. After they defeated Sarrial, they would have to find some way to save the people of Reun from their guillotine. It was only a matter of time before the citizens would run out of food.
The four allowed themselves a bit of time to catch their breaths from the near-encounter with Sarrial. Stig still didn’t let his mind go to rest; he thought frantically of food, and how they would find it. They didn’t have any water or space for growing crops, and the fortress was devoid of livestock. They would have to find Sarrial’s farm.
After a quick rest to relax their aching muscles—they did not sleep, as they had no way of telling the time—Stig took the last of their planks of wood to make an exit from their alcove. Putting together a rickety wooden ladder, Stig poked the ladder through the ceiling of the alcove and hooked it to the top of Sarrial’s fortress, making sure not to swing it over any windows.
“We only have a few planks of wood left,” Hylda said as she helped North onto the roof. “We had better find more soon.”
Talis squinted over the fortress; they still hadn’t cleared the huge cloud that robbed the ground underneath of light. They stood on a series of platforms, but the gaps between were nearly invisible in the darkness. Monsters roamed the platforms, but the cramped space prevented them from overtaking the roof. Sarrial’s voice from below the roof caused the four of them to jump.
“Sarrial’s right beneath us!” Hylda whispered urgently. “It sounds like she knows where we are!”
“No,” Stig’s brow furrowed pensively. “It sounds like she’s talking with someone.”
“Well, that’s just great,” North said angrily. “Now there’s someone else we have to worry about, and given that Sarrial hasn’t killed him yet, he’s probably even more powerful.”
Stig jumped down to a lower platform and broke open a small hole in the wall of Sarrial’s chamber. Peering through, he saw Sarrial walking swiftly along a hall, talking to the air. She seemed to be having a harsh conversation with some invisible person. Stig bit his lip and continued watching Sarrial as she triggered a hidden device, causing a wall to open up. Stig gasped when he saw the hidden room; it was a wheat farm! They had finally found food!
Stig heard the others firing arrows at nearby monsters, keeping them away from the weakened group. Stig was about to happily announce that Sarrial’s farm had been discovered, but the next thing he saw horrified him into silence.
Flames washed over the crops. Sarrial had started a fire, burning every scrap of edible wheat to the ground. Stig quickly closed up the wall before Sarrial saw him spying.
“What’s wrong?” Hylda asked nervously as she saw Stig approach them, a forlorn expression on his face.
“Sarrial is an insane schizophrenic,” Stig said quietly, “and she just burned down her own crops.”
“What?” North gripped his sword so tight that his hand reddened. “She’s letting herself starve just so that we die too?”
Stig nodded, clutching his moaning stomach. “There will be other sources of food,” he said, masking his own doubt. “There has to be.”
North scoffed as Talis shot down the last wandering monster. Pushing past Stig, North returned to the hideout. “What’s his problem?” Talis asked as he holstered his bow.
Hylda sighed; she knew that North was furious at Sarrial, but he wouldn’t turn that rage against his friends. Hylda shrugged, turning away from Talis and following North back to the alcove. “I don’t know.”



Stig was tired of running. From Lucus, Wes, Oren and Sarrial, he had been constantly hunted until he couldn’t run any longer. His weariness turned to homesickness as he crawled into the tiny space on the side of Sarrial’s fortress, which he and his friends had made their hideout.
North was already there, taking small items from his satchel and tossing them to himself. It was a habit he had fallen into years ago, and he was determined to hold on to it. He didn’t respond when Stig entered.
Stig wanted to say something to North—something about how they would find food, or defeat Sarrial—but he knew that North was no longer a child. After seeing Hylda and Talis into the hideout, Stig rooted through their supplies in search of something that would provide them with something edible.
“I’m going scouting,” North said, standing up abruptly. “I’m the smallest out of all of us…I should be able to evade Sarrial easily.” North slowly left, wincing as he expected someone to come forward and stop him. Once he had closed the wall of the hideout and seamlessly entered Sarrial’s fortress, he took off.
“He thinks we’re holding him back,” Hylda said, suddenly comprehending North’s strange emotions. “He wants to fight Sarrial as soon as possible.”
“If you’re right, maybe we shouldn’t have let him go scouting,” Stig said as he holed out a small alcove in the wall and judged the distance to the ground below. Despite being on one of the lower parts of Sarrial’s fortress, they were well over a hundred meters up.
Talis watched curiously as Stig drew a gnarled fishing pole and cast it toward the ground, watching the bobber intently until it faded out of sight. Stig sighed, disappointed, as the line became taut.
“It’s no use,” Stig said as he slowly pulled the line up. “I thought we could catch a fish from that decomposed fountain down in Reun. Even if the line stretched long enough, I can’t see anything in that water.”
Stig wiped his brow as he leaned against the wall. “I can’t take this place much longer. Can we take the ceiling down just for a little while? I don’t think we need camouflage from that angle anyway.”
Meanwhile, Talis idly attempted to cast the fishing line again. The end of the line dangled helplessly over the water before Talis reeled it in again.
“Maybe North’s right,” Hylda said contemplatively. “We’re not doing this right. There has to be something we’re missing.”
“Yeah…well, I don’t think North had much in mind,” Stig replied, sitting against the wall. Stig, Hylda and Talis continued to talk and plan half-heartedly, until North returned half and hour later.

“I’m not coming back here again,” North said forcefully before the others could say anything.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to fight Sarrial alone?” Stig looked up, alarmed.
“I’m going to see if there’s any food that Sarrial didn’t destroy. But if it comes down to it…I will.” North looked around the tiny hollow, where Stig, Hylda and Talis stood. “It beats staying here.”
Hylda tried to glare, but instead she just looked tired. “North, I know you don’t like how we’re doing things, but you can’t go out there. Sarrial will find you eventually.”
“Then so be it,” North grabbed a couple of extra weapons from the hideout and strung them around his back. I’m not letting her take my identity as well as my father.”
“What…?” Stig asked, confused.
“You know what I mean! You’re all losing yourselves the longer you stay here. I’ve been getting so tired…it feels like I’m not myself anymore. The way I see it, if we don’t leave now, Sarrial’s already won.”
“North, we haven’t been here long. You’re just worn out, you need to—“
North was done waiting. Before anyone could talk to him about slowing down, he took off, ignoring Stig, Hylda and Talis as they tried to call him back without alerting Sarrial, wherever she was. As North rounded the corner, his former friends watched with sorrow before Talis slowly sealed off the hideout.

North jumped at every shadow. Forcibly ignoring his wounds and his hunger, he walked quickly through the fortress, turning abruptly at any sign of movement and feeling his heart fall whenever he hit a dead end. It took an hour of walking before he saw a glimpse of Sarrial’s shadow, and he felt certain that she had seen him. Sprinting down the hallway, North aimed for a knot of passageways that he knew well, so that he wouldn’t be trapped. After he felt he had run enough, he leaned against a wall, only to be woken by the sharp, piercing sound of explosives and grinding cobblestones. North peered around the corner to see the wreckage of the hallway through which he had escaped. Shortly afterward, there was another explosion from a small distance away. Carefully trying to retrace his steps through the traps, North eventually found every route he could take blocked. Sarrial had narrowed down his location…and had destroyed enough passages to make sure he could not return the way he came. North cursed his clumsiness and continued through the steadily-shrinking fortress.
It had been almost two days since any of them had eaten, but they had lost track of time under the dark roof of the fortress. Talis was constantly checking outside to see if North had returned, or sorting and resorting their resources. They were nearly out of scaffolding as well, after their short trip on the roof. Stig saw Hylda walking slowly around a corner; she had recently dug a small ridge on their hideout, but Stig had not asked what it was for. Stig’s eyes widened as he realized that Hylda was smiling, and had dropped a large fish onto the floor of the hideout.
“I did it. I got food.”



Stig gazed, wide-eyed, at their new source of food. Tearing himself away from the tantalizing smell, he shoved the last of their wood and charcoal into a crude furnace to cook it. While Stig remained shocked and silent, Talis jumped forward.
“How did you get that?” Talis exclaimed.
“Sarrial had built a spire nearby,” Hylda replied quickly, “I just used a bit of scaffolding to climb down the outside. Once I was low enough, I was close enough to that lake on the surface to snag a fish.” Hylda swept the hair out of her eyes as she laughed in relief, barely containing her own hunger.
Stig hurriedly shoved the fish in the small cubbyhole for cooking. He couldn’t believe it; his mind was so clouded by hunger and fear that he could find no solution to their starvation…but Hylda had kept her head, and she had figured it out.
Talis, who was good with ranged tools, climbed out onto the scaffolding and eventually caught enough fish to satiate all three of them, and North, if he ever came back. He did not look for more, knowing that the group would go straight after Sarrial once they were satiated. Stig, Hylda and Talis sat on the floor as they ate, feeling their lives and their true emotions return. But North was still out there, confused and angry and starving, looking to destroy an opponent he could never face.
Stig thought about this as they ate, his satiation restoring some of his reason. If they left to find Sarrial, North might come back and find himself shut out. It would be nearly impossible to find him, though, if he were hiding from Sarrial.
Eventually, Stig decided that they would have to leave the hovel. Hopefully, they could evade Sarrial until they found North. Looking up, Stig noticed that Talis and Hylda were already planning their battle against Sarrial.
“I’ve always wondered—why do you grow your hair out so long? It seems a bit cumbersome in battle.” Talis was asking this while looking away, half-thinking about how to use his bow more effectively against such a fast opponent.
“You wouldn’t believe the cowards they let into the Reun guard; having long hair gives me a bit of concealment against anyone attacking from behind. But if we watch each other’s back, I guess it would be better to cut it short.”
Hylda’s actions were fluctuating between eating her fish and running her hand over their supplies as she looked for suitable resources to use. She seemed to be bristling with excitement at being free of the hideout, not even thinking about Sarrial’s ferocity. Stig, Hylda and Talis all began to feel more optimistic, certain that they could find North and free Reun. After hours of preparation and healing wounds, Stig vigorously broke open the door of the hideout, grabbed his pickaxe and his satchel, and stepped out into the end.

Careful to adjust their voices to low whispers, Stig, Hylda and Talis walked through the fortress. As soon as they found their way to one of the bridges, they were shocked to find it completely destroyed.
“Sarrial must be trapping North,” Stig said. “She knows he’s out here, so she’s destroying escape routes.”
“So North should be nearby?”
“He has to be. Otherwise…”

The three of them jumped at the low, hissing sound of Sarrial talking just above them, in the center room of the fortress. Stig listened for a while until he decided that she had not heard them.
“That must be the hallucination she’s talking to,” said Talis. Despite his hardy upbringing, he shivered at the thought of his own mind conjuring phantoms to haunt him. Talis began to pity Sarrial’s wrathful, fearful tone.
“If we’re going to be fighting her soon,” Stig said, once again thinking hard about the situation, “we should be able to do this.”
Without explaining, Stig took the last of their scaffolding and inched toward the stairwell leading to Sarrial’s room. He covered the doorway completely, leaving no place for sound to travel. Gradually, Stig raised his voice to his normal volume.
“North,” he said as he glanced up for signs of Sarrial, “where are you?”

As North heard the call, a chill ran up his spine; he was relieved that his friends were still alive—if they still thought of him as a friend—but he realized with horror that Sarrial must have heard them. Maybe Sarrial had captured them, and was using them to find him. Shuddering at the thought, he ignored all his instincts and crept toward the voice, not daring to leave his friends with that psychopath.
Just as Stig, Hylda and Talis had, North jumped in shock at Sarrial’s voice just overhead. He wondered why she had not also gone after the voice, but North realized he didn’t care. He ran toward Stig, falling apart at the thought that he might actually find safety. When Stig saw him round the corner, North’s face was covered in blood, sweat and tears.

North’s ragged, crippled demeanor immediately loosened into relief and pleasure as he ate his first bit of food in a long time, settling into an alcove to enjoy the meal in safety. Even so, he was afraid to speak—he had abandoned his friends and lost sight of his goals. It felt too presumptuous to ask for forgiveness.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hylda smiled. She was sitting next to him along with Stig and Talis, carefully watching the blocked doorway to Sarrial. “You weren’t thinking straight. Just don’t do it again, got it?”
North stared down at the floor and his meal, still feeling wrong for letting the others ignore the issue. But he respected them, as he should have before, and decided to trust their judgment. After all, there were more important matters to consider.
After a brief explanation of their plans and their up-and-coming battle, Stig, Hylda, Talis and North quickly drew their enchanted tools of battle, illuminating the room with a hopeful purple glow.

On the other side of the barricade, Sarrial ran a pointed finger down the makeshift wall.
“You failed once again,” Nemus said angrily. “You had but four foes to kill…and instead you let them grow to their full power.”
Sarrial was calmer than usual; whatever happened in the next ten minutes would end things, one way or the other. Her attitude slowly affected Nemus as well.
“You are almost done,” he murmured in a hushed tone. “Kill them. Then you will be free of me, and you may live your life as you choose. You will no longer be bound…not by Lucus, not by the scavengers, not by Wesley, and not by me.”
Sarrial nodded mechanically, having heard the same droning speech many more times than she cared to count. Both Sarrial and her final foes stood by the barricade as Sarrial shoved her spade into the wall and began to wrench the layers of dirt from their places. Stig, Hylda, Talis, North and Sarrial held their breaths in unison as the barricade toppled.



Standing in the lead because of his enchanted armor, North was suddenly face-to-face with his father’s murderer, dressed in a heavy suit of raggedly-cut diamond. Sarrial, though she was standing calmly, twitched and shifted her sword. North and Sarrial studied each other until North could no longer take the silence of looking into his hated enemy’s eyes. Exhaling sharply without speaking, North whipped his sword out and aimed it at Sarrial’s neck, which was barely out of his reach. Sarrial knew this, and didn’t move.
“So…you’ve finally come,” Sarrial broke the silence. Her voice was strangely soft, as if speaking with her invisible torturer had left her drained.
Hylda shot North a glance, willing him to be strong. North’s rage against Sarrial had reminded Hylda of the need for self-control, and one false step would allow Sarrial another kill.
Not sure what to say, North stammered, “W-we’re here to defeat you. And…we’re here to save Reun.”
Sarrial laughed mockingly. “Playing the hero, are we? You don’t even know what it’s like to kill someone, or ‘defeat’ them as you say. You do not know my strength.”
“You’re weak,” Stig muttered from the back of the arrangement. Sarrial looked at him, recognizing his face. Stig continued, “I’ve been thinking about it, ever since I heard your schizophrenia. The four of us have been through almost everything you have, and we didn’t turn to hate because of it. You can’t take the pressure you’ve been put through…you’ve never tried to be strong.”
Sarrial tensed and readied her blade, ignoring Stig’s remark about her mental condition. Nemus had to be real…how can someone so manipulative be so fake?
North’s and Sarrial’s swords were inches away—but North’s was unenchanted, and Sarrial’s gleamed brightly. As the blades met, purple sparks danced down Sarrial’s sword. As Sarrial swiped the edge of her sword in a lightning-fast arc, North raised his blade to block when an explosion shattered the doorway.

North coughed as smoke slithered out of the ridges in his armor. Sarrial, although she had realized Stig’s trap in the nick of time, was sent plummeting backward into the throne room, a nasty burn cutting across her cheek and singing her hair.
“Nice one, Stig,” Hylda said as she leapt through the smoking doorway and attacked Sarrial, slashing with level, rapid streaks. Hearing the clanging of metal, but not daring to look away from Sarrial’s blade, Hylda fought her in vain—despite the Enderdragon’s power in Hylda’s sword, Sarrial had accumulated the time and effort to create an even greater blade. When Hylda was hit with a berserk-blow that pushed her back toward Stig, she looked with horror to see Sarrial untouched.
Sarrial’s ear twitched as she sensed Talis slipping through the smoke. Sarrial leapt to the side to that Talis’s arrow grazed her diamond armor. Seeing the tiny gash made in the softened metal, Sarrial looked about as the four children—no, warriors—circled her.
Like Sarrial, Stig was having his own doubts. Even with her offset behavior, Sarrial was just as clever as he, and as proficient in battle as the four of them combined. But no—he was trying to do all the thinking himself again. He needed help…
The dark room confused Stig’s senses as he saw North’s breastplate grow a huge scar from Sarrial’s enchanted sword. He had to think fast before his friends died while he did nothing. Remembering their planning, Stig grabbed a heap of dirt from the doorway barricade and rushed toward Sarrial. As Sarrial noticed and attacked him, he blocked her with a wall of dirt—as he had done against Lucus—when Hylda leapt up the wall and carved an arc across Sarrial’s helm. Meanwhile, arrows flew wildly; not only was Talis frantically trying to hit Sarrial as she dodged and slashed through his arrows, but Sarrial seemed to be firing at Stig and Hylda whenever she found an opening in the battle. As Stig used every trick he knew to support his friends, he began to study Sarrial’s tactics, spinning and leaping over her foes to confuse them, and tried to find a way to counter her—when an arrow shot out of Sarrial’s unnoticed bow and pierced Stig’s stomach.
As Stig toppled to the ground, Sarrial immediately seized the opportunity. In one wrathful movement, Sarrial slipped a second enchanted sword from her belt and drove back Hylda, Talis and North with a wave of purple flames.
Sarrial pounced at Stig, landing her pointed boot on Stig’s throat. Sarrial raised her sword above Stig as he choked, and began to bring it down into his skull—but she stopped. Mirrored in Stig’s terror-stricken visage, Sarrial saw her own face.

In that split moment of hesitation and mercy, Sarrial was knocked off of Stig by Hylda’s sword and Talis’s arrow, rending Sarrial’s armor further. Hylda, Talis and North attacked Sarrial one by one until she had trouble fending off their attacks. After being backed into a wall, Sarrial leapt over her attackers and tried to shoot Stig again, but Stig twisted his body so that the arrow grazed his armpit. Trying to get up, Stig found himself pinned down by the arrow in his gut.
This is it, Stig realized. This is the moment in which I need my friends most.
Stig called to Hylda. “Hylda, listen to me! I’ve figured out how Sarrial fights!”
North jumped in front of Hylda to face Sarrial, so that Hylda could run to Stig and speak freely.
“She attacks from above a lot,” Stig whispered hurriedly. “Attack her down low. Here…take this scaffolding from the barricade. If you get her against a wall and protect your head with these scaffolds, her legs should be vulnerable.”
Hylda nodded a silent be safe to Stig and returned to the battle, as Sarrial lunged at North with two swords, catching his sleeves and pinning him to the wall. Hylda barely defended him before a third blade struck his heart.
As Hylda and Talis continued to bring down Sarrial’s armor, Stig focused on North. Realizing the low ceiling, Stig recalled the time he was trapped in his house by Wes. Grunting as he leaned toward North, he shouted,
“North! Break the ceiling open!”
“What?”
North turned to Stig, who was making a ‘kaboom’ gesture. Grimacing as he understood, North pulled his satchel up to his confined hand and drew a pickaxe, carving a hole just large enough for a creeper to fall through. Beckoning urgently at the first one he saw on the roof, the creeper happily jumped down to North and detonated. His armor was singed, but North was free.

It was too late. Hylda and Talis were on the ground, gasping for air. North charged at Sarrial, but she whirled around and drove her sword through him, rending his armor and pushing shards of ruptured diamond into his chest. In a rush of adrenaline, Stig ripped the arrow from his gut and staggered to his feet, clutching his wounds and lurching toward his wounded friends. Despite her victory, Sarrial looked with terror at the approaching figure of Stig, who looked like a zombie single-mindedly pursuing her.
“Why?!” Sarrial shouted in a rush of paranoia. “Why must you keep fighting? Nemus…he will never leave while you’re alive!”
“There is no Nemus, Sarrial,” Stig continued to creep toward her. Undead began to seep out of the hole in the ceiling. “There’s no one controlling you, telling you to kill. It’s just you.”
“I do not have the luxury of choice,” Sarrial said, coveting Stig’s perseverant gaze as he focused on saving his friends. “And I cannot allow you to choose your own fate, either.”
In front of the wall of undead shifting toward them, Nemus scowled at Sarrial, warning her against Stig’s words.
Stig had reached Sarrial. In his final stand, he swung his sword at her. Sarrial blocked with a force that Stig’s wounded body couldn’t take. Stig slowly began to fall. Just before he hit the ground, he let his sword leave his hand, revealed a bow in his other hand, and shot Sarrial between the eyes.

Stig knelt before Sarrial, a throbbing pain in his head. Sarrial’s damaged helm couldn’t sustain the arrowhead, and a trickle of blood ran down Sarrial’s nose. She began to shiver. “Nemus…I’m sorry…I couldn’t…please don’t…”
Stig didn’t pay attention to the horde of monsters inching closer. “Sarrial, there is no Nemus,” Stig said, touching her arm. “You don’t have to listen to him anymore.”
She didn’t know why, but Sarrial believed Stig. She realized that Nemus was not real…that none of it was real. Sarrial closed her eyes as she accepted death, and was free.
Stig sighed in happiness and relief, sharing in Sarrial’s peace, before he passed out.



Stig woke in a dimly-lit scene, but it took a while to figure out where exactly he was. A sliver of urgency tugged at the back of his mind—when he had fallen unconscious, he was in a room rapidly filling with monsters—but he was too tired to jump to his feet. Looking around without moving his head, Stig realized that he was in a wrecked wooden house…it was his house, back when he still lived in Reun. He recognized the ruined attachments and designs he had built. So his strife wasn’t a dream…he was in the destroyed city of Reun.
Stig’s latent urgency intensified; he realized with a jolt that he was on the surface of Reun, and the sky was still dark. Wasn’t the ground littered with undead? Stig noticed a field of torches outside the window; someone must be keeping the creatures away.
Hylda sat next to him. She hadn’t noticed him wake up, and was vigilantly guarding the house, just as Stig had done for her. Relieved and bursting with questions, Stig managed to pull himself out of the bed.
Hylda gasped in shock when she saw him awake, then jumped from her chair and hugged him, almost knocking him from the bed. Stig was so happy to see her alive that he decided to hold onto his curiosity a bit longer.
Soon, Stig and Hylda were sitting on the far end of the room, looking out at Reun. It was still destroyed, but many of the houses were partially rebuilt and the ground was well-lit to ward off the monsters. The horizon revealed soldiers in the distance, holding the perimeter of light. As Stig began to ask, Hylda filled him in on the events that occurred after Sarrial’s death.
“I tried to help you when you fought Sarrial alone,” Hylda admitted, “but I was too weak to reach her in time. The way you pulled that arrow out of your body…I had no idea you were capable of that. However, I was able to make it to you once you passed out. Sarrial was carrying a few potions that she didn’t have time to use, so I was able to heal everyone’s wounds.
“I hoped that the potion would wake you up, but you were still unconscious. North and I carried you out of the fortress and down the last safe spire while Talis backed us up.” When Stig began to ask, Hylda quickly said, “They’re fine, by the way…they should be headed back here soon.”
Hylda continued. “We used Sarrial’s scaffolding and Ender Pearls to make it to the saferoom where the remains of Reun were hiding. They weren’t exactly pleased to see us, but we cleared our names pretty quickly once we showed them Sarrial’s insignia and supplies. That’s it, really…now we’re just working on retaking Reun with Sarrial’s enchanted weapons.”
“How long was I out?”
“It’s only been six hours or so.”
Stig sighed with relief as he and Hylda left the ragged house and watched the incorporeal city come back to life. “I missed you, Hylda,” Stig said. “We were always best friends in Reun…but after all this time trying to survive, I felt like I was losing the time when we could be who we really were. I really missed that.”
“Well, we’ve certainly earned our leisure back now,” Hylda looked hopefully at Reun. “Whatever happens next, at least we can say we’ve been through worse.”
Hylda suddenly held out her hand to Stig. “Friends?” she asked, as though she were meeting him for the first time.
“Friends.”

(3 years later)

Stig and North ran frantically through the streets of Reun, arguing heatedly about who slept in worse. They almost knocked a man over running through the street, trying strenuously not to avoid a big day in the lives of their friends. Stig collapsed into a chair at the rostrum with North next to him, complaining about the rostrum being at the far end of the city. They saw Talis in the front row and waved, knowing how important this day was for him. Talis acknowledged them, relieved that he would have support.
Hylda stepped onto the podium, dressed in the rare chainmail she had received when she became the new lord of Reun. Stig and North waved again when they saw her at the rostrum. Hylda cleared her throat, and then began to speak with all the confidence in the world.
“Well, you all know what I’m going to say here,” Hylda said. “We are here to celebrate a man, and a great friend of mine, being promoted to the rank of Constructor. Due to certain unfortunate events, this ceremony was delayed a few years, but now, Talis is ready to join the official ranks of Reun. Talis, would you please come to the stand?”
Talis jumped up to the small stage without using the stairs. The applause was hesitant; it was obvious that Talis was very recently a member of the Moonrise. However, a quick look from Hylda and the encouragement of Stig and North caused the rostrum to blossom into a cacophony of roaring applause.
“Congratulations, Talis,” Hylda said. “You deserve this.” Talis was handed the book obtained by all Constructors; flipping quickly through the pages, Talis found an amazing amount of content on both intellect and strength, as well as the collection of notes on ranged civil defense which he had worked on with Stig last year. Stig, as it happened, was the head Constructor—he had found his book in the ruined palace. Stig felt a twinge of loss as he considered this, as he had discovered that Wes had not burned the book after all.
“This is not all I have to say,” Hylda raised her hand to silence the applause. She had already told Stig, Talis and North about her speech, and they were all nervous to see how it would turn out. “The Moonrise civilization has done a lot of bad things to us, and we them. Lucus and Sarrial have proven that to us, and Talis will be conducting a mission to change this.” The listeners grew confused, and Talis held his breath, trusting Hylda with all his ambitions and goals.
“Talis will rebuild the Moonrise as our ally. If we can learn from each other, with your support, we can make both our cities greater than ever before. Talis has proven that we were not enemies with the Moonrise, but with their corrupt rulers! With Talis in charge, we may just form a peace that Reun has not had in years. Come forward, if you are willing to change!”
There was silence. Hylda did not take this as a good sign, but she maintained her gaze. Stig and North stood up, hesitating only to wonder at Hylda’s confidence and eloquence. More people stood around them. Finally, the entire assembly stood, welcoming Talis’s goals. Talis watched, stupefied. He had always wanted this…but he had no idea that his friends could help him fulfill his goals so completely. Talis nearly wept as he thanked Hylda, and a half hour later, the four of them were leaving the rostrum.
“Nice work, Talis,” North said. “You’re going to do great.”
Talis grinned nervously at the sudden pressure. “I don’t know how you did it, Hylda. The youngest monarch in Reun’s history, and they listened to you doubtlessly.”
“So what are you all going to do now?” Hylda wiped the sweat from her brow.
“I guess I have my work cut out for me,” said Talis. “I’m going to see what I can do to fix up the spires in Moonrise. Stig, would you mind helping?”
“No problem,” Stig said. He was having trouble finding a new project, and was always up for a construction challenge.
“I’ll go too,” North chimed in. “Sarrial probably rigged a lot of traps and darkrooms, and I’m trying to find something that will get me to Captain of the Guard.” Hylda smiled at this; she was honor-bound to lead certain battles, and having North alongside her would be great. “Count me in,” she said.
“Really?” Stig said. “Are you sure you’ll have the time? You’re the new lord, after all.”
“I don’t have any politics to take care of for a while,” Hylda shrugged. “Besides, I need some break time. If we don’t find a way to get rid of this monarchy soon, I’ll go insane. I don’t know how Wes did it.”
“Be careful about giving away all that power, Hylda. I’m sure there are a lot of people who want to snatch it.”
Soon enough, they were at the gates of Reun. Despite all their struggles, Stig, Hylda, North and Talis couldn’t seem to rest without being ready for yet another challenge. The four of them left, as friends, for their first step in rebuilding the world.