“Son of a bitch!” Serra exploded from her seat, blades flashing out, slicing the damaged buggy in two.

The Knights and King tumbled into the mud and rolled to their feet, blades in hand to rush the group. Roxie whistled an off-kilter tune, peppering one of them with sonic blows that knocked them unconscious.

Staggering to their knees, Autumn got a hand on the hood and drove their rapier into the ground, fiery cracks splintering like a web through the mud and erupting as geysers of flames that incinerated another three.

Serra clashed with the King in a furious battle of blades, while the last Knight circled around, rushing her back. Serra deflected a blow from the King and it went wide, cutting the Knight down with a slash of pure force. The King abandoned his blade and grabbed her wrists, smashing his helmet into her forehead. Unable to utilize swords at this range, Serra dropped her own blades, claws flashing.

The King grabbed Serra’s horn, smashing his gauntlet repeatedly into her face, and she grabbed at his helmet, getting her claws into the eyeholes.

“What were you saying?” Roxie asked Autumn, as the brawl continued beside them.

“I’m not sure this is where it ends,” Autumn shook their head, looking up. The Threads of Fate had returned to normal, swirling endlessly above, “who else was practicing chronomancy today?” their eyes turned to the limp, lifeless body of the Primordial Reckoning, “how did the Knights know where to awaken Terminus, or how?” their eyes turned to the two halves of the buggy’s engine block, “and who upgraded their vehicles to keep up with an adventure grade sports car?”

“Four months of investigation and we’re still not done,” Roxie sighed, “how many people could want the world to end?”

Roxie jumped a little as the King was thrown into the car, grabbed again and thrown against the ground. Serra seized her katanas and sank one into the King’s neck, finally putting the zealot down.

“Lotta folks got a problem with our world,” Serra pointed out, “question is, who’s got the resources?”

Autumn’s eyes scanned the environment, but there were no Knights left alive they could question, not after the chaos of the last battle, “Serra, could you retrieve the halves of the engine? The construction could yield some answers.”

“Right, course.”

The trio gathered themselves slowly, stowing the halves of the engine in Roxie’s trunk, clambering into the car with heavy limbs and sore bodies. Roxie, unable to play her guitar at the moment, hummed a quiet tune that filled the space and soothed their wounds.

A gentle breeze blew through, swirling and twisting with Roxie’s magic. Their wounds began to heal themselves, a blessing from the forest itself, as thanks. Roxie flexed her fingers and smiled, shifting to the driver’s seat and taking the wheel.

Autumn quietly collapsed across the back seat, still recovering from the effects of a chronomantic feat, and unconsciousness soon overtook them.

Roxie turned the car around and headed back the way they had come, down the now muddy path amongst the trees.

“What’s the plan once we get home?” she wondered, “Autumn can pick that engine apart for clues, but I’m fresh outta leads.”

“Gonna see my girlfriend,” Serra huffed, settling uncomfortably into her seat.

“It’s been four days, don’t act like the world is gonna end.”

“Won’t anymore,” Serra smiled a little, “I’ll reach out to Ama n’ Frosch, see if they turned anything up.”

“Smart. I’m gonna submit the forms for our payment; Terminus, the King and the Knights should make us all plenty of cash,” Roxie smiled, but it sank quickly, “ugh, but that’s so much work… forget that, you got plans with Seren?”

A devilish smile crept across Serra’s face, “Well…”

“Ew, nevermind, I don’t wanna hear about that,” Roxie waved her hand as though wafting away a foul smell, “I’m probably just gonna sleep when I get home, I can edit today’s footage later.”

“M’sure we’ll get some sleep eventually.”

“Gross, Serra!” Roxie threw an old cup at the laughing demon, the fairy couldn’t help but laugh a little herself.

Light began to surround the car, and Roxie pressed a button on the console, summoning a hardtop roof that guarded the weary adventurers from the elements. The car pulled out of the trees and emerged into a gorgeous city, a fairy metropolis of marble spires combining flawlessly with the nature around it. The forest behind them was now a small grove of golden foliage, one of many portals to the endless wilderness they left behind.

Roxie merged with traffic and slowly brought the group out of the city, reaching a road that stretched out into a meadow of beautiful flowers, then to a rolling green plain, leaving the city of Nixielogue behind. Many hours passed, and the sun was hanging low in the sky when they came to a bridge, at least a hundred meters long, stretched across a huge ravine with flowing ocean waters at its bottom.

The continents of Exicara consisted of impossibly huge, shattered plates, separated by gaps such as these, mountainous drops into the unfathomable waters of the ocean. Roxie turned the heat up when they crossed, as the temperature outside dropped. This plate could not have been more different from the one before, a polar biome, a rolling tundra into a forest coated by snow.

The majority of their journey took them across this plate. As the sun at last set, Autumn awoke slowly, trading places with Roxie for a while. Though they stopped occasionally for food or gas, they were all exhausted and eager to be home. Early in the evening of their third day of travel, they finally crossed another bridge into a significantly more moderate environment, passing through a cliff-filled forest, up and down the side of a mountain, and at last arrived at New Diagory.

New Diagory was a city at least twice the size of Nixielogue, though it was just as tuned to nature. Buildings and streets were built around huge, natural spikes of earth, with plenty of room for nature to thrive. From this side, the trio first drove through a nice suburban area, then into the city itself. Buildings were built with trees growing in and around, solid bridges on many levels stretching between them, creating a busy environment that blended the needs of people and nature.

It was Autumn’s home they visited first, a quiet apartment in a section of city that stretched underground into a massive cavern, where the buildings were built stout and wide. The trees became moss and mushrooms, glowing gently in cycles that mimicked the daylight above, by this hour the city was dim. Autumn’s home was at the far West end, overlooking the smaller buildings adventurers and researchers used, just before the city gave way to the cavern altogether.

Autumn’s third-floor apartment was nice, fairly spacious, the front door opened directly into a living space with an attached kitchen, three doors beyond served as bedrooms and a single bathroom. Resting on the couch was a young woman with short brown hair and pale white skin, wearing a red shirt and black pants with an apron overtop, a steel mace on the cushion beside her. She looked, impossibly, more tired than the arriving adventurers.

“Joy.”

“Hey, Auts,” she yawned loudly. She was staring at the TV, though it was currently turned off, “s’that Serra?”

“Heyo,” Serra leaned to avoid a hanging lamp, moving into the apartment.

“No Rox?”

“In the car,”

“Damn,”

“Serra, would you place that on my workbench?” Autumn asked, resting on the back of the couch.

Serra took the engine through the fourth door, into Autumn’s room. It was a simple space in shades of white, primarily dominated by their workbenches, one to either side, and a neatly made bed stuffed into the corner. Myriad projects, in various stages of completion, spilled from the workspaces, and a wall of written scraps, notes, articles, photos and countless other pieces were pinned above them both, the trail of their ongoing investigation. The far wall led onto a balcony, overlooking the strange wilderness of the cave beyond.

Serra dropped the engine pieces onto the cleanest available surface and turned back, waving Autumn a quick farewell on her way out the door.

“Not gonna forgive if y’stay up workin’,” she warned.

“You have my promise,” Autumn assured her. They watched as she exited, shutting the door behind her.

“...y’gonna work?”

“Naturally.”

-

The trip to Serra’s home was quick and uneventful, just a short drive back through the city. She lived roughly in the middle of town, where the buildings were often taller rather than wider. The elevator ride took her to the seventh floor in exhausted silence, down a corridor and to apartment number seventy-two, a nice oak door with a hanging wreath of green and white flowers. She’d barely gotten her own key out when the handle turned, and a tiny woman in a white silk nightgown flew out of the doorway to embrace her.

Seren was a minor nature spirit, maybe five feet tall and plump with tan, freckled skin and waist-length, dark green curls. Sapphire blue eyes scanned Serra up and down, taking in all the injuries. The cuts, the bruises, the black eye and scuffed horn, the bandages only half-decently wrapped and wounds healed just enough to make it home.

“You look beautiful,” Seren told her, pulling on Serra’s arm, “don’t die on our welcome mat?”

“Got all the energy I need, now,” Serra smiled, letting herself be dragged inside.

-

Roxie got herself home last, barely awake enough to not crash. Her house was not an apartment, but a proper standing home in the suburban space at the edge of the city, with an attached garage she pulled her car into.

The house was nicely decorated and decently clean, Roxie made an effort to keep her spaces proper, but now the weariness of their adventure had fully overtaken her. She was barely through the door as she pulled the long unwashed pieces of clothing off, tossing them haphazardly across whatever furniture was available, jacket across the table, shirt on the couch and skirt on the floor by the stairs. She tossed her bra on the railing as she ascended and threw open the door to her bedroom, placing her guitar gently on its stand.

The bedroom was a little messier than the house at large, a huge plush bed with black sheets and a thick, weighted pink blanket took pride of place, beckoning invitingly. A pair of bookshelves took up one corner, to either side of a dark red armchair, which she haphazardly threw her bag and underwear over.

Though the bed called to her like a siren’s song, Roxie took a moment to examine herself in the mirror. She had far fewer injuries than Serra or Autumn, being purely a magic user, and a much smaller target at that, four inches shorter than even Seren. A small smile found its way to her as she looked her lean frame up and down, six years in a body that at last felt like her and she still felt a little happier every time she saw it, tiny holographic wings fluttering excitedly on her back.

Finally, Roxie tore her eyes away and collapsed gratefully into bed, allowing sleep to overtake her.