Displaced

From the moment Rudra had entered this world, he had always been within the boundaries of the Stragman rainforest. Well, technically, the facility that had brought him here had been more adjacent to the jungle than within it, but in effect, he'd spent his entire time here within the forest's vast territory.

Until now, that is.

He had long wondered what the rest of Scyria looked like. Given the sheer majesty of The Divide and the many diverse and awe-inspiring areas of Stragma, Rudra's imagination had run wild, and his expectations had risen to match.

Instead, gazing down at the landscape slowly moving beneath him, he found the rest of the world—or Gustil, at least—to be positively mundane. It was all just trees and grass—normal-sized trees and normal-sized grass, even! Little more than the usual temperate forests and plains that covered so much of Earth! Sure, the plants sported hundreds of different colors beyond the standard green of Stragma, but all that added was a small touch of variety to drive home just how unremarkable everything else about it all was.

Was this it? Was the rest of the world just… normal? Was it… boring?! Well, thinking back on the last few years, maybe boring and normal wouldn't be so bad.

And, no matter how ordinary the view out the side window might be, he'd still rather look at that than the mess behind him.

"…Gabby-friend…"

"…hhhhaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh…?"

"…Pari hungry…"

Rudra glanced back at the two lumps piled on the floor in the center of the cabin. Hours ago, the moment after they'd embarked and the massive blimp had begun to move, Gabriela had flopped onto the cold metal floor like a sack of rocks, declared she was "done with spending all my time these days off solid ground", and demanded that Pari "light up the good stuff". To which Pari had pulled one of her many candles, set it beside Gabriela, lit it, and flopped down across the woman's torso like… well, like a cat. A moment later, the candle had enveloped them both in a noxious cloud of blue smoke, and the two of them had been high as a kite ever since.

He wasn't sure if he should be more annoyed by the cloying, mildew-y smell that lingered in the air more than half a day later or by the fact that the mystery drug hadn't worked on him; a few minutes of very mild disorientation had been all he'd gotten from this so-called "good stuff". Still… given everything he'd witnessed climbing Ruresni with the Mexican woman, perhaps keeping her zonked out of her mind while they floated amongst the clouds was the way to go. Keeping the crazy explosion girl from lighting up anything more deadly in this enclosed space was another plus.

Then again, it left him with nobody to talk to, nothing to do, and, to his great annoyance, made him de facto captain of this oversized balloon on which he'd never before set foot. He knew she didn't like heights, but that didn't excuse being completely irresponsible. What if something happened? Was he supposed to be the one to fix it? Because it sure didn't seem like anybody else was in a condition to do much of anything constructive.

"…Gabby-friend… hungryyyyy…"

"…then… ea' somethin'…"

"…mmmmmmm… nothing to eat…"

"…haaahh?"

"You had to throw the food away, remember?" Rudra prompted her. "Because it had gone bad?"

"…ahhhh, riiight…"

"So, there's nothing to eat."

"…an'… an' whoshe fault ish tha'? Haaaahh? Mishter… Mishter Shtubborn… takin' sho long…"

Rudra rolled his eyes. He was not about to apologize for holding firm on his convictions, especially when it had all worked out for the best in the end.

"…you fixsh it, Mishter Shtubborn…"

"Me?"

"Yesh! 'Cause I don' wanna!"

The normally dour woman let out a remarkably childlike giggle, which elicited a giggle from Pari in return, which then brought forth more from Gabriela. Soon enough, the two of them were giggling up a storm, squirming around as they each tried to out-tickle the other.

Rudra sighed. It seemed it was up to him after all. Well, nothing for it. He trudged over to the front of the cabin. Pari wasn't the only hungry person on board.

Rudra had been too distracted by the trip and his thoughts until now to pay attention to things like the massive control apparatus standing here. Now, as he took a good look at it, he found his mood getting even worse somehow.

Who had built this mess?

Having worked in construction for years, Rudra had received training in and operated multiple kinds of heavy construction machinery during his tenure. He knew what a well-designed layout of instruments and controls looked like, and this was nothing of the sort.

No less than six—SIX—screens of assorted dimensions took up much of the space, the difference between each inscrutable to his uninformed eye. Over fifty different meters and gauges, many without labels and with unclear purposes, crowded what space remained, their placements and groupings seemingly random. And then, there were the controls themselves, with an assortment of levers, switches, and what looked like… two separate flight sticks? Why was there a second stick? Which one was the second stick?

Whoever had created this had no idea what they were doing. It was like people who had their own personal system for where they put things. Sure, it worked fine for them, because they'd made it for them. But as soon as somebody else got involved, things got messy quickly.

Then again, Gabriela had been able to operate this, at least to some degree, so surely it couldn't be that hard to figure out…

Not much later, he'd managed to work out a few things—enough, at least, to find a place to go and steer in that direction. One of the screens turned out to be an interactive map, though the level of detail left a little to be desired. It only showed the larger towns and cities, so the available options were slim. In the end, Rudra decided to turn towards Rul, the only decently-sized city near their original destination.

Several hours and much complaining from the peanut gallery later, the city appeared on the horizon. The sight only drove home the fact that he was no longer in the jungle even more. The small castle, the stone construction of the buildings… the stationary designs that favored durability and stability over all else were the complete opposite of the Stragmans' modular, portable approach. Perhaps he had not fully appreciated just how different the basic ways of life were out here versus in there. Had he gotten too used to the rainforest-dwellers' flow?

Time would tell, he supposed. Now was not the time to ponder such things, anyway; he had much more present concerns to worry about. Important questions like, how did one land this thing? What even counted as landing? Could the aircraft touch down, or was the only option the unsettling box on a pulley? Where could he even try to land this massive machine?

Ideally, he could just set down near a market, buy some food, carry it on board, and leave. The problem was that, at least according to Gabriela, they had not brought any money on this trip, nor did they have anything to barter with. That meant he had to negotiate with somebody in power for supplies, which only complicated things further.

With this in mind, there were three general places he could disembark. Parking the ship over the city's seat of power—its castle, temple, or whatever building the important people could be found—would be the most direct way to get things over with, but the odds of actually parking this giant metal balloon and not hitting something on his way down seemed too low to justify the time saved. Plus, the people in charge might view it as some sort of attack, and he didn't feel like having a bunch of pointy objects pointed his way today.

On the opposite end, he could park outside the city. It would be the easiest and least confrontational, but also take the most time. There was also the possibility that the people here would just close their gates and refuse to let him in or negotiate with him at all. An option, but not a great one.

That left disembarking inside the city, but not too close to the most important areas. He'd be inside, and they wouldn't be able to ignore him, but hopefully it also wouldn't appear too threatening. The problem was finding a place that would even be open enough to work—he didn't relish the thought of trying to lower down that "elevator" while hovering over city sprawl and hitting the side of a house or something.

Luckily, he spotted a viable landing spot as they grew closer to the city—an open plaza halfway across the city from the tallest buildings. As they neared it, Rudra spotted what looked like market stalls, but far fewer than it seemed like the place was built for. Well, that only gave him more space.

As the sun began to dip below the horizon, Rudra pulled the propulsion lever down to neutral as they moved atop the plaza, bringing them to a halt. No, wait, they were still moving—just a bit of reverse should do it—no, that was too much—whoops, now they were going forward again—there, that was more like it—hold on, they were drifting off to the side—the stupid wind was blowing them—if he could just…

Eventually, Rudra gave up, dragged Gabriela's semi-limp body over to the controls, and got her to show him how to make the damned thing hover in place. And just like that, he was ready to get back on solid ground. All it had taken was fifteen minutes of embarrassment where even the most technologically illiterate witness would easily realize that he had no idea what he was doing—truly, the best of first impressions.

Leaving the impaired duo to themselves for a little—and praying that they didn't suddenly decide that leaving him here would be hilarious—Rudra took the lift down to the city. Thanks in part to his parking adventures taking so long, a large contingent of fighters had gathered in all the entrances to the plaza, effectively blocking him off.

For a moment, he chose to just look around him and take in the crowd. They seemed an eclectic mix, some to his eyes seemingly too young for guard or soldier work, while others far past their primes. Some had polished, well-fitting armor that shone the in red light of the setting sun, while others wore pieces that appeared to be too small or too big for them or were desperately crying out for a scrub.

After spending so long around the militaristic Stragmans, the forces here felt rather… underwhelming. The jungle-dweller soldiers had a wild ferocity to them that these people lacked, yes, but that savage demeanor masked strong discipline and professionalism that appeared to be largely missing here. He couldn't spot much coordination, not even between people in the same group.

Or, maybe the reason he was so unimpressed was that he was taller and larger than all of them. Rudra was a big man, but at least some Stragmans could equal his stature. Here, it felt like he was at least a head taller than the tallest Rul citizen he could see.

That made them nervous. Rudra could hear the mutterings and whispers of the assembled troops, and while he was too far away to make out the words, their tone said more than enough. Not wanting to waste any more time, he chose the group with the most people and headed their way.

An armor-suited man stepped out from the group as Rudra drew near. He appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties with a round, almost chubby face that spoke of far more recent battles with pies than enemies, but unlike many present, he still carried the bearing of a soldier.

"Halt!" he bellowed. "Identify yourself and state your purpose for coming here!"

"My name is Rudra Kapadia, and I'm here to get supplies."

The man looked at him warily, his gaze flickering between him and the airship hovering a good fifty meters above. "Oh, are you, now?"

"I need enough food to feed four people for thirty days."

The ruddy-faced man's cheeks puffed up in incredulity, making his muttonchops bristle. "Thirty days?! You think we have that amount of food just lying around to give to strangers?!"

"I would make it worth your while."

"Four thousand drakats."

"…You don't look like somebody able to make that kind of decision."

"Shut it! I'm not gonna let you bother the lady at this hour unless you can prove you're not going to waste her time. If you don't have the coin, then you aren't worth hearin' from, and the sooner you're gone from here, the better."

"I don't have any money—"

"Hah! Then get out, you overgrown—"

"—but I can pay with something far better."

"—Eh? What's that, then?"

"Life."

"…Huh? You daft or something?"

"There's no point in trying to bargain with you over this," Rudra asserted. "Take me to this 'lady' or whoever can get me what I need, and I'll be out of your hair. I don't want to spend any more time here than I have to, either."

"Sir Gemmar!" a voice called out from somewhere in the back of the pack.

A younger, willowy man dressed in finer, more ruffled clothes than the soldiers pushed his way through the crowd. The soldier that Rudra assumed was 'Gemmar' took several large steps back as the new arrival rushed to his side, whereupon the pair began to insistently whisper to each other. Gemmar's expression grew more and more sour as they went on, though Rudra felt like the man could grow sour at his own birthday party.

Finally, the whisper party came to an end, and the two turned back to face him.

"Lady Eris invites you to greet her in her palace," the newcomer told him. "Please follow me."

"We will escort you there," the older man told him, his tone making clear that he was not a fan of this decision but intended to carry it out to the best of his ability. "First, hand over any weapons you have on you. First squad will take the front, second squad the rear. You will stay in the middle, no less than fifteen paces from either. Understood?"

Rudra had to fight not to roll his eye. "Let's just get this over with, and I can be gone before you know it."

"Best thing I've heard all night."

As they walked, Rudra tried his best to look around and observe what he could. Something was off about this city, but he couldn't tell what it was, which put him on edge.

On the surface, things looked fairly normal. Modest one and two-story buildings lined streets that seemed fairly clean. They would pass the occasional bystander or two, who would break their gaze away from the airship off in the distance to look at him cautiously but curiously, then immediately turn back to the giant blimp floating over the city. The people didn't seem too afraid to be out, and he could hear all sorts of noise coming from within the taverns they passed by—the ones still in business, at least.

Ah, that was what was bothering him. The city was too quiet. Too empty. A giant machine had flown through the air to come here and loom ominously over the city, and he knew just how loud that thing was. Even when it was simply holding position, its many propellers were always working, filling the air with a low drone. And yet, there were too few people out staring—far too few. The number of homes he'd passed with activity or lights was much lower than he would have expected, as well. It wasn't so late that everybody should be asleep. Far too many businesses had their windows shuttered, and the nightlife here lacked the energy a place of this size should have. He'd seen far too many closed taverns and the like on their trip through the city for things to be normal. Running a tavern surely wasn't easy, but he knew just how hard it was to go under when running a bar. He could still recall the gross state of some of the places he'd frequented back on Earth, and if those places could stay afloat…

Something had happened and taken away half of this place's population. The war he'd heard about, most likely, though the lack of any damage left him wondering about the details. Up-to-date, detailed news had not been available while stuck in that damned cell, after all. But whatever the cause, this worked in his favor. His offer would only entice them more.

The walk was uneventful, if slower than he'd wished, but soon enough they were walking down fortress hallways. At last, they entered a lavishly appointed room, where a middle-aged woman sat and…goodness, that was a lot of feathers. And the ruffles! Was this what fancy, high-society fashion was like here?

For a moment, the woman—Lady Eris, he assumed—didn't seem to even acknowledge their arrival. The door closed behind them as she took a deep, slow puff from a long and thin pipe before letting out a breath of smoke. Only then did she deign to look his way.

Despite the garb, the accessories, and the makeup on her face, the woman looked tired. Burnt out, even, her eyes cold, but weary. She'd surely been through some rough times recently.

"So, you are our uninvited guest? The one who rides the Skyhive?"

The what?

"You ask much of us. Giving up that much food would strain our supplies during a time of great instability. If you have no money, how do you propose to bargain?"

"It's simple. One hundred and twenty people. One for each day of food."

"Pardon?"

"From here, we will be heading to the site of what I hear was a great clash of armies just a year ago, correct? I believe it is called the Battle of Moro Valley?"

"A great loss for us," she confirmed. "The beginning of the fall, one would say."

"In return for the food, once there, I will bring one hundred and twenty of your people back to life."

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Gasps and murmurs came from the assorted onlookers, but Lady Eris just snorted.

"Bring them back? And afterwards, I imagine you'll fly to the moons? I thought somebody who could command such a great thing as the giant would be able to offer more than such silliness. How disappointing."

Well, that was not how Rudra had expected things to go. He'd been so used to how he'd been treated in Stragma that he'd never considered that his powers might sound like the ravings of a madman to somebody unfamiliar with him. Now what?

"If you insist, I can prove it to you. We can make one of the hundred-twenty somebody from—"

"Do you think we just have bodies lying around?"

"I thought I saw a few graves on the way here, at least."

"And I don't have the workers to spare, wasting their time digging when they are needed for far more important tasks," she sniffed.

This was going nowhere. The truth wasn't working. Time for a different tack, perhaps?

"Lady Eris, please understand. I am trying to help you. I am traveling with the one you call 'The Monster', and she wanted to just take your food by force," he lied. "It took a lot of work to convince her to let me buy it from you instead. If you reject me, she'll simply do what she wanted from the start."

The woman scoffed.

"One foolish bluff after another. Do you take me for a naive child? The Monster fought on the opposite side of those who command the Skyhive, not with them. Everybody knows this."

Drat… Negotiating had never been Rudra's strong suit, one of the many things Tepin had drilled into his skull over months and months. It really didn't help that he apparently had no understanding of what the people of Scyria believed to be true.

"Well? Any more lies for me before I throw you out?"

Rudra bit his lip. Now what was he supposed to do? He felt out of ideas, but he had to say something.

Before he could even open his mouth, a series of booms reverberated from the large double doors that had shut behind them. Somebody was pounding desperately on the other side of the wood. And was that yelling he was hearing?

As suddenly as it had started, the banging stopped, ending with what he was fairly sure had been a scream, but through the thickness of the doors, it was hard to say for sure.

WHAM!

The doors flew open—plowing through several unprepared guards—to reveal a woman of average height with long black hair, tanned skin, a giant black sword propped up on her shoulder, and one leg still held forward post-kick.

A glance behind her revealed a handful of bodies slumped on the ground or against the walls, but thankfully, he didn't see any blood.

"There you are!" snapped Gabriela. She had nasty-looking bags under her eyes, her face pallid, and the sort of expression one made after waking up with a particularly nasty hangover. "What's taking so long? It's just food!"

"I'm working on it," he grumbled back.

"Well, hurry it up! I have the worst headache of my life, and I'm starving to boot. Get a move on before I do something I'll regret later."

With that said, she did an about-face and walked right back out, leaving those still standing in stunned silence.

Rudra watched her leave, then turned back around to his negotiating partner to find her still staring at The Monster's receding backside with wide eyes. After a moment, her gaze returned to him, and she swallowed.

"…One hundred and twenty people, you said?"

Rudra had been told that the Battle of Moro Valley had been a huge one by Scyrian standards, but even that had not prepared him for the sight below. Moro Valley had become a boneyard, its terrain littered with the sun-bleached remains of tens—maybe hundreds—of thousands of humanoid skeletons scattered about over time by weather and wild animals.

"This is crazy," he muttered.

"Yeah…" Gabriela agreed from somewhere behind him. She'd taken a single glance out the window and immediately gone to lie down as close to the middle of the cabin as she could, looking like she was going to vomit. At least she wasn't high this time. The aftereffects of Pari's 'medicine' had been harsh enough that she'd decided to forgo a second round after Rul. "The Emperor wanted to push forward as fast as possible, which meant we didn't stop to deal with our dead. And the Gustilians, I imagine, have had far more pressing issues, just trying to survive under occupation and dealing with the loss of so many people so quickly."

She sighed.

"…The way you talk makes it sound like you think this is your fault."

"It is my fault, at least somewhat. People tell me not to blame myself too much, and I'm trying, but the facts remain. Without my cooperation, what you see down there would never have happened."

"And without me, it might have ended very differently."

Gabriela lifted her head to look his way, the obvious question spelled out on her face.

"You know how I helped bring all of Stragma to a halt for months, right?"

"Hard not to, with all the walking we had to do. People love to gossip when they're bored. I'm jealous, you know. You made a huge difference without taking a single life, which I never could."

"More people died because of my decisions than you or I would have ever thought. In a way, this place is like this just as much because of me as because of you. If I had not stopped the Stragmans, they would have joined the Gustilian army with a force large enough to completely change how things played out. Everything that happened with the rest of the war might never have occurred."

She sighed again. "Wouldn't have changed the outcome much."

"Don't be so sure. The Stragman army is huge. A million troops, if they want to put everything they have into it."

"A thousand soldiers or a million wouldn't have made a difference. I'm basically impossible to stop if I'm determined, and back then I was very, very determined. Maybe more Ubrans would have died, but the result would have been the same, just with more skeletons."

"If you say so."

Pari scampered into the cabin, her trademark sack slung over her shoulder.

"Pari ready now!" she announced.

"Alright," Gabriela said, pushing herself to her feet. "Let's get off this thing for a while."

As they made their way to the elevator, the child looked to be practically buzzing with anticipation.

"Pari, I need you to behave yourself today. Can you do that for me?"

"Pari will!"

"That means no running off somewhere I can't see you."

"Okay."

"And no surprising us with weird poop you found or something."

"But…" The child's enthusiasm dwindled.

"And especially no messing with the skeletons."

Pari's shoulders slumped. "But… but Pari want play with boney bones…"

"I know, but these are the last remains of a whole lot of people. We have to be respectful."

"Mmmmnnnngggg…"

"If you behave, we can camp outside tonight instead of sleeping in the ship, alright?"

The girl's ears perked up like they'd just gotten a direct injection of caffeine.

"For true?!"

"Only if you behave."

"Pari will be goodest Pari ever!" she proclaimed as she sprinted into the elevator just ahead. She demonstrated that commitment by immediately sprinting out of the box the moment it touched down and running off utterly unsupervised into the vast field of bones and disappearing from sight.

"Cute tactic," Rudra remarked.

"Huh?"

"You want to camp down here even more than she does. Anything to not be up there a minute more than you need to be. You're just hiding it behind a reward that you will so kindly give her regardless of how much she listens."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Gabriela sniffed.

"So… where is he? The person you upended an entire country to have me revive?"

The woman surveyed the valley for a moment.

"It was… near a stream? I think?"

"You think?"

"It's hard to keep track of it all sometimes."

"Well, I see at least three streams, two of which look like they cross most, if not all, of the valley. Can you be more specific?"

"Uhhhh…"

Rudra sighed. "Good thing I got so much food, I suppose. Well, let's get this started."

Sitting down right outside the lift, Rudra closed his eyes and tuned out Gabriela's confused questions. It wasn't required to use his powers, but it helped. Finding the spirit was easier with fewer senses getting in the way.

Immediately, dozens of souls made themselves known to him. He reached out tentatively, testing his power. The last time he'd used this, it had led to a terrible fire within him that had felt like it was just about ready to burn him up from the inside. But, as he brought his ability to bear as cautiously as he could manage, he found no such pain.

Good. Given what was to come, he needed as few problems as possible.

Throughout his time in Stragma, Rudra had brought back at least one hundred thousand Stragmans, if not far more. This had given him ample practice in reviving multiple people at once; otherwise, reviving that many people would have been impossible even if he'd worked without rest every single day. Nowadays, he could handle several hundred in a single go if he really tried.

A moment later, he opened his eyes again to find Gabriela and himself surrounded by about one hundred and twenty confused, weaponless, and very naked people lying on the ground, some on top of others in a chaotic mass.

"Hey, warn me before you pull something like that!" Gabriela protested.

Then, all hell broke loose. Rudra didn't see who threw the first punch, but within moments, the newly revived people were already trying to send their counterparts back to the afterlife. Fireballs flew through the air, whatever discarded weapons nearby were grabbed, and the fight was back on.

Right… he'd never done a mass revival before where the dead were a mix of two warring armies. To their experience, they'd been in battle, only to suddenly find themselves on the ground, naked and unarmed, with no real transition in between. While that would be incredibly confusing and would throw most people off their game, these people had been in a fight to the death, and they wouldn't need uniforms to recognize the face of the person who'd just tried to murder them.

"Stop! Stop fighting! Knock it off!" Gabriela hollered, but nobody heeded her voice. The newly resurrected were too busy shouting amongst themselves.

Rudra didn't know what to do. He'd never had people whom he'd just brought back try to undo his handiwork like this. To make matters worse, he could see the ire building within his companion, and he didn't know what would happen when she erupted.

But before that could happen, somebody else came to the rescue. A large cloud of smoke burst forth from some unseen candle, quickly enveloping the group before even the fastest of feelers could leap away. Rudra and Gabriela were no exception. Before he even knew what was happening, Rudra had already inhaled the smoke.

Almost immediately, he felt his world wobble and his head get a little fuzzier. Thankfully, he was still sitting down, so he didn't have to worry about much. He recognized this sensation; he'd felt it before from Pari's "good stuff", by which he still wasn't heavily affected.

The others, however, could not say the same. The entire scrum of revived individuals, plus Gabriela, fell to the ground with huge, serene smiles on their faces.

"Gabby-friend says no fighting!" he heard Pari announce from somewhere nearby.

A moment later, she emerged through the smoke, a wet cloth over her nose and mouth. She handed a similar cloth to Rudra, who immediately put it over his face and took a deep breath. It smelled weakly like ammonia crossed with mildew, but within a few seconds, he could feel the headache and disorientation fade away. He tied it around his head as a sort of makeshift gas mask.

"Thanks," he said as she bent down and stuck another cloth over Gabriela's silly grin.

"Ruddy welcome!" she replied. The girl looked around in confusion at her surroundings now that the smoke was almost all cleared away, a cute and puzzled frown on her face. "Where people come from? Pari look away for only few moments and so many people show up?"

"I brought them back."

Pari gasped and grabbed the side of his arm with almost vibrating excitement. "From boney bones?!"

"That's right."

"Pari not get to see when Ruddy do it with Pari! Pari want to see! Show Pari!"

"Pari, don't make him overwork himself," a newly sober Gabriela told her, sitting up. "He's already fulfilled our bargain for the food. We just need to find that bastard and get out of here."

"No, I am going to bring everybody back. She'll get to see it so much she'll get downright sick of it."

"Wait, what do you mean, 'everybody'?"

"I figured you wouldn't be able to pinpoint the one person you're looking for on your own, which means I'm going to be reviving a bunch of other people until we find the right person. That never felt fair to me that just a few random people get a second chance, so I decided I'll just do it to everybody here."

"Then what was that about raising one hundred and twenty people for Rul?"

"I never said I would revive only that many," he corrected her. "If I am going to bring all these people back, I figured we might as well get something out of it."

Gabriela turned away from him and looked out over the valley, her hands squeezing tightly at her sides.

"I'm sorry, I decided to keep it to myself because I thought you'd—"

"Thanks," she said in a soft voice.

"—huh?"

She turned back, and Rudra could see the tears welling in her eyes. "I… actually wanted to ask you to do exactly this for a while, but it felt wrong for me to demand something like that, you know?"

"I thought you'd be mad. What about your schedule and all that? Back in Stragma, you were in such a rush."

"How many times does somebody get the chance to undo one of the greatest mistakes of their life? Who cares if we're a bit late? Blake can get over it."

She sniffed deeply and rubbed her dripping nose beneath the cloth.

"Seriously, thank you. I don't know how I will ever be able to repay what I'll owe you for this."

"I told you, I would be doing it anyway. And this would just make us even, or have you forgotten everything that you accomplished in Stragma, oh mighty Chos?"

Gabriela chuckled. "I guess I can't argue with that. So, how long do you expect this will take?"

"If the numbers you told me before are accurate… several weeks of non-stop work, at least."

She grimaced. "Well, it'll be fine. Nothing ever happens in Otharia anyway."

"Alright, then…" Rudra nodded. Looking around, he found Pari, who had wandered off and was currently poking one of the resurrected soldiers with a stick and having the time of her life doing it. The woman was trying her best to stave off the vicious attack, but was finding it quite difficult in her highly intoxicated state. "If we are going to do this well, we're going to need a system, and much, much more of Pari's 'good stuff'."

"It's crazy how much stronger Stragman ingredients are compared to what you find outside the forest," Gabriela remarked as another group of revived people fell into fits of giggles.

"Yeah?" Rudra responded.

"This is the Stragman version of something Pari made to help me with my… flying issues, we'll call them. The original just sort of took the edge off the anxiety. Turned down the volume on the screaming voices. I didn't expect the new variety to be fifty times stronger."

"Oh, so when leaving the forest, you—"

"Yeah, wasn't expecting something to knock me off my feet like that. I should have, in hindsight, but… whatever. Even with the killer hangover afterward, it's still better than traveling without it."

"Are you sure Pari has enough to last until the end? We're burning through her candles quickly, and we can't exactly go back to Ruresni to get more if we run out."

"We'll be fine. She knows her craft better than we ever will." She glanced his way, one eyebrow raised. "You ever watch her work?"

"Never been too interested."

"The amount of ingredients she puts in a single candle is so tiny, I have trouble even making out some of it. The only candles that need a lot of materials to work are the ones that explode. We'll be fine."

"Good."

"Time to pull them out."

Gabriela donned her breathing cloth and turned into a blur. A few moments later, all two hundred or so people in the dissipating smoke cloud had been deposited safely in the designated zone a few hundred meters away, whereupon two teams of volunteers from earlier revivals would quickly sort the Ubrans from the Gustilians and the occasional Eterian into separate camps and start laying out the situation.

The vast majority of revived people would eventually group up with others on their side and head out, presumably to their homes in Gustil and Eterium or some fortress in The Divide for the Ubrans. A select few, however, would choose to stay and help, at least for a little while. Whether it be from a sense of duty or a desire to stick around until a friend or loved one was also brought back to life, Rudra didn't care as long as they did their jobs.

The first few rounds, without anybody to help, had been arduous to say the least. Even when naked and surrounded by bones, many people had trouble believing things like "the war ended seasons ago" and "the Ubran Emperor died" out of nowhere. The Gustilians, especially, didn't take well to being told what had happened by the woman they'd watched kill their best and most renowned soldier. Things only started calming down once Gabriela started clearing out all the nearby weapons before Rudra would bring more people back.

But now, things were running far more smoothly. The two camps would still jaw at one another—enmity remained sky high—but being utterly without armor and even clothing generally caused people to think twice before doing something too stupid. And for the times when that wasn't enough, Gabriela was very good at being intimidating if she wanted to be. The Ubrans, coming from a time when she was their champion, still had reverence for her, and the rest were rightfully terrified of her, so all it usually took for the troublemakers to get the message was a piercing glare and a single swing of her sword fast enough to generate a sonic boom heard across the entire valley.

There was always the possibility that the revived were coalescing into larger groups somewhere outside the valley and going right back to warring where he couldn't see it, but Rudra doubted it. Even if you couldn't remember the moment of your death, just knowing that you died was usually enough to make you reconsider your priorities. That, and the fact that none of them had anything to eat. They couldn't afford to waste energy on war when it would take most of what they had just to get someplace safe.

And so, one day passed, and then another. Pari would cover an small area with her happy smoke. Rudra would then revive the nearby dead as Pari watched, eyes gleaming—even after the hundredth time, she still found it fascinating for some reason. Coming back to life within the smoke, the newly revived immediately fell into a docile stupor. Gabriela would then relocate them, and their comrades would handle the more delicate work of catching them up to speed while Rudra moved to a new section of the battlefield.

That was how it went, repeating over and over with little variation… except that one time.

Usually, when not moving the revived, Gabriela stood beside Rudra like a bodyguard, impassively watching for threats "just in case". So, he was the first to notice when, all of a sudden, her whole body tensed up. He quickly looked around, searching for some sort of danger, but found nothing out of the ordinary. No, she was staring intensely at a nearby group of Gustilians like a starving hawk spotting a baby rabbit. No, not at the group. At one man. He was fairly thin and very much on the short side, with a mop of messy hair and a rather delicate face, but that meant nothing to Rudra.

The group had noticed her gaze—it was hard to ignore—and looked to be getting ready to run for it when Gabriela vanished from her position next to him, the force of her movement enough to knock him onto his side. Then, almost as if she'd teleported, she reappeared in front of the man, her movement fast enough to create a shockwave that knocked the Gustilians off their feet. Gabriela's arm shot out, catching the man in question by the arm before he could fall like the others. The blast still blew the man's hair back long enough for Rudra to spot something unusual.

Long ears? An elf?

Gabriela looked the elf over with a harsh, scrutinizing gaze. The man, for his part, trembled like a mouse caught by a cat, his doom foreseen with the only question being when it would arrive. And as for his body's quite natural reaction, well… perhaps the less said about it the better, though Gabriela didn't even seem to notice.

"How many children do you have?" she asked, her tone as overbearing and oppressive in its intensity as the rest of her.

"Uhhh—I—ahhh—" the man stammered, as one would expect when being assaulted by a super-strong woman for no apparent reason.

"Kids. How many."

"T-two—" he barely managed to squeak out.

She forcefully pulled him closer, staring him down face to face, their noses just hairs apart. "NAMES."

Rudra had doubted it was possible to go paler than the man already was, but he was quickly proven wrong. The poor guy looked like he was one sudden movement away from fainting on the spot.

"Ah—Uhh—Aysen and uh Tem—"

Before he could even finish his answer, Gabriela cut him off by pulling the man into a soul-crushing hug, which was not a direction that Rudra—or anybody else watching for that matter—had expected this to go. For one seemingly interminable moment, she squeezed him tight, the poor elf now no longer trembling but instead having gone stiff as stone.

"Please forgive me for killing you," she said, her voice tight.

"Uh?"

She released her embrace, letting the man sway back, though she kept her hands on his shoulders to keep him upright.

"And please… tell them again that I'm sorry."

The man just stared at her uncomprehendingly, his brain short-circuiting.

"Be safe, but be quick. They're waiting for you."

With that said, she finally released her grip, letting the shellshocked elf fall onto his un-clothed butt.

"And the rest of you! You make sure he gets back home safe and sound, or I will hunt each and every one of you down and make you regret it! Don't think I won't!"

Then, with a second clap of thunder, she was back next to Rudra.

He studied her for a moment. Her usually impassive facade was nowhere to be seen, and it looked like she was desperately holding back sobs.

"You alright?" he finally asked.

"I'm fine," she quickly answered, wiping away a tear with her sleeve.

"You sure don't seem fine. What just happened?"

"Nothing. I just feel… relieved, is all."

"Not many times I've seen somebody feel 'relieved' after making a man pee and poop himself out of sheer terror."

"Oh, shut it."

"No, really, your timing was very considerate of him. After all, you can't shit your pants when you don't have any pants."

"Don't make me end you," she said with a tiny smirk.

Surprisingly, it wasn't until the seventh day that they got their first visitors, and it was somebody they both sort of knew. That evening, a caravan pulled into the valley, led by a rather impressive carriage. To Rudra's surprise, out of that carriage stepped one Lady Eris.

"I cannot help but notice that the number of people returning from here far exceeds one hundred and twenty," she dryly remarked after walking over to the three of them.

"Did you come all the way out here to complain?" Rudra replied, still focusing on his work. They didn't have time for breaks.

"We brought clothes. Every spare item that we could afford to do without."

"That's quite kind of you," Gabriela said.

The noblewoman let out one of her seemingly trademark scoffs. "Hardly. I just got sick watching so many hungry and naked people show up."

With a flick of her fingers, a flame spouted at the large end of her pipe, and she inhaled deeply for a moment.

"So you want to plunge this place into a second civil war? Is that your goal?" she finally asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Come now. You're releasing hundreds of thousands of well-trained soldiers into a Gustil that no longer exists as they knew it. What do you expect will happen? The various power centers will snatch up as many as they can to triple the size of their armies, and then the fighting will begin again, only far worse this time."

"It doesn't have to be that way," Gabriela argued. "A force this size, even split up, might still have the power to help stitch the pieces of this country back together. As long as they have the right leadership."

"Hmph, perhaps. There is the possibility that a member of the royal line perished here along with the rest. With the right backing and a more legitimate claim to the throne than the others, Gustil might eventually be restored… after years of bloodshed."

"You are telling me to stop, then?" Rudra inquired. "Is that why you're here?"

The woman took another long drag from her pipe and looked around the valley. A little less than a third of the area was now free of bones, all from what Rudra believed to be the Gustilian side, because the majority of the people he'd revived so far were Gustilian or Eterian. All in all, he'd probably brought back a hundred thousand non-Ubrans?

"It's too late now," she replied. "The damage is done. Besides, you have not yet brought my son back to me. If you're going to destabilize my world and give me a giant headache for the next few years, I can't have you stop before you find him in all of this, can I?"

She took another puff.

"You can leave my husband here, though."