Surrounding the area the darkness had expanded to took weeks, each wall that was erected covering such a miniscule portion of the expansive sea. And each wall requiring even more people to maintain them, more workers to reinforce the structure as the barrage of darkness and flesh slammed themselves against the other side.
If the darkness had spread for a few more hours before they’d managed to begin containing it, Zoe wasn’t sure they would have been able to actually succeed, even with the entire might of the capital behind them. The resources on display, the sheer power the capital put out to build the new wall was incredible. Thousands of people, maybe even tens of thousands, rushing around on the forest floor as they hauled materials around. Mages that flew through the sky and more fluctuations in space than Zoe could even count as people teleported around constantly.
Even Zoe found herself being used as a mule, Cosmic Leaping dozens of bags of different materials out into the forest in moments where the wall found itself with enough mana to sustain for a while. Glass, rocks and other materials that lacked any amount of energy. Nothing with any amount of life, nothing with any amount of mana. Just boring, mundane materials being hauled around and erected in what looked like a long strip of a patchwork quilt.
Zoe sent off at least two letters every day and oftentimes even more. One in the morning, just to make sure that her friends were still safe. And one at night to update them on everything that was happening. The letters were still sending, and Zoe took comfort in knowing that at the least, her friends were still alive.
She’d even rushed back to Foizo after the first few days just to make sure that nothing was awry, and the city looked just as it always had, though with much more anxiety filling its streets. News had spread of the capital’s situation it seemed. Emma and Joe were both fine though wracked with anxiety, eagerly waiting for each of the messages Zoe sent every day. Emma was working on trying to get classes that would be more helpful to the cause, though she hadn’t had any success in just a few short days.
The capital began to calm down after the darkness was contained, too. Even surrounded by walls, the undulating mass of corruption continued to slosh about in its massive cage, but bit by bit the edges began to wither away as the last bits of life and mana within the forest were consumed in its ceaseless frenzy. Weeks more flew by as the corruption thinned, clinging to the last remnants of the forest that it could.
In its wake was a gruesome sight. A massive, sprawling section of the once beautiful forest had withered and died, the light that filled it gone and replaced with a dense shadow that blanketed the land. Zoe remembered the Okiu and the splotchy shadows that covered the forest after its wake, and almost couldn’t believe this was the same thing. How close had Flester been to complete destruction, at the time? How hard did the Okiu work to keep the corruption from spreading?
How did the Okiu keep the corruption from spreading in the first place, if it even did? Maybe it just never managed to reach a critical mass, at the time? Never managed to get enough energy to begin spreading so violently?
As the corruption died away, the focus of the defense began to shift from the building and maintaining of the walls to education on the corruption. When the last remannts finally withered away, many groups would be sent out into the forest to destroy the remaining shadows to prevent it from ever rising again and to hopefully find the source of the corruption. Several places of interest were named — namely one dungeon aptly named The Corrupted Caverns, as well as the two detached alchemy districts that could be found to the south east of the city.
The royals taught how the corruption consumed life and mana, what it would consume. How to properly defend against it and how to prevent it from taking over when it did reach you. Areas to be wary of, where the corruption might be able to sustain itself.
In Zoe’s opinion, the worst part was the very extreme investigation of every person’s storages to see if anybody had stored some of it away. The thought hadn’t even crossed Zoe’s mind, but the process turned out to not be a complete waste of time as three people did have some of the disgusting corruption stored away without permission.
The storage items weren’t all that bad to share, Zoe handed her jewellery over and let the investigators poke through her belongings. A bit embarrassing but hardly anything to write home about. But the royals were taking no chances. A signed contract wasn’t enough for them, believing people didn’t have anything in their Storage skills just wasn’t good enough. Even just believing people didn’t have a Storage skill wasn’t good enough for them.
Part of Zoe understood the sentiment. If somebody were managing to lie, managed to hide some of the corruption away, then it could be a death sentence for tens of thousands of people. The corruption was bad enough coming from outside the city — how terrible would it have been if instead, the corruption were let loose within the city walls? In somebody’s shop, or a school, or simmering away beneath the surface somewhere people wouldn’t notice until it was too late?
But even if it was understandable, Zoe found it a most unpleasant experience. The royals had several mages who could use what Zoe felt to be soul magic. It felt like the system had a newborn child and was letting it handle one of Zoe’s class changes. Their magic raced through her body and soul, feeling about every corner of her being with the precision of a wrecking ball. Another mage had to stand by just to heal up all the damage that was caused to her.
Every single person who had the chance to come in contact with the darkness were put through the horrible process, regardless of whether they even showed the capability to use magic at all. Many mages were sent off to chase down anybody who had fled the city in the commotion, or anybody who had left afterwards. It seemed to Zoe that the royals had a very extensive list on everybody within the city, and were insistent that every single person, regardless of where they were, was checked.
Zoe wasn’t sure how the royals would get around somebody fleeing from the town and dropping the corruption off somewhere before they returned but it didn’t seem like they were letting anything slip through their fingers. Thanks to Zoe’s brief visits back to Foizo it seemed that the entire city was under investigation for any remnants of the corruption now. With how large the country was, and how many villages there were, Zoe imagined it would take years if not decades before they were confident the darkness was truly eradicated.
On one of Zoe’s days off from prowling through the dark patch of forest, she flew back to Foizo to visit her friends again. The city was on edge with the increased royal guards walking along the walls and travel out of the city much more difficult as anybody leaving needed to be first cleared by one of the soul mages. They never seemed to check anybody again though, which concerned Zoe a little.
Were they incompetent, forgetting that Zoe could have picked it up again? Or had they left something in Zoe’s soul to track what she put in her Storage skill? Zoe spent several hours searching through her soul for anything that seemed out of place but as usual, wasn’t able to be confident one way or the other. One day she would learn soul magic, she decided. If other people could do it with the help of a healer, then Zoe could do it with the help of her own healing.
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Emma didn’t seem to be home so Zoe spent a few minutes playing with Fennel and Oliver before she headed out to Joe’s inn.
“Oh, there you are.” Zoe said as she walked through the doors and saw Emma sitting at the bar chatting with Joe.
“Oh! Zoe!” Emma leapt from the stool and ran over to give Zoe a hug. “You’re okay? Everything’s still okay? Are we okay?"
Zoe nodded. “Things are looking alright. We’re still getting rid of the last remnants of it, I don’t think anybody’s made it to the points of interest yet. There’s a lot, Emma. So much.”
“I’m glad you’re alright, Zoe.” Joe said. “Want a drink?”
“Sure,” Zoe walked up and sat down at the bar. “A drink sounds nice right now, to be honest.”
Joe summoned a wooden mug and poured some clear pinkish liquid into it from a large keg hanging from the back of the wall. On the front was a poorly written label that seemed to say ‘Rawbi’ but could just have easily said ‘Robins.’
“Rawbi wine?" Zoe asked.
Joe nodded. “Not quite wine though. More of a spiced cider. It’s pretty good, try some.”
Zoe took the cup and sipped some of the pinkish drink. It was incredibly tart, puckering Zoe’s mouth as she drank it. The taste was sweet and somewhat nutty, but the smell that wafted from the mug as she brought it over her nose was full of cinnamon and… butter? It tasted almost like a strawberry pie made from fermented strawberries turned into a drink.
The drink was odd, but Zoe didn’t mind it. Not her favourite — she’d much prefer a sweeter drink to something so tart, and if she was going to have strawberry pie it would really be better in actual pie form. But it was interesting and fun nevertheless.
“You going to be back then?" Joe asked.
“Probably, yeah. I think I want to stick around there as much as I can, at least until the darkness is fully dealt with. It feels good to be able to help out, you know?" Zoe asked.
Joe nodded. “I do. And I’m proud of you for it, for what it’s worth. You’ve come a long way since you begrudgingly let people come live here in your home.”
Emma chuckled. “Yeah, forty years ago I think you would have just tried to convince us to go live with you on the moon.”
“The thought crossed my mind a few times, I’m not gonna lie. If things didn’t get under control as quick as they did I think I probably would have shown up on our doorstep and started moving people to the moon.” Zoe laughed.
“About that, actually.” Joe held up his finger. “We were talking on the council about your dungeon.”
“Oh no.” Zoe smiled. “What now?"
“Well, you don’t really use your dungeon, right?" Joe asked.
“Not really, no. One day I probably will, I guess.” Zoe said.
“Well we were thinking that a lot of our citizens would probably like to have the chance to explore the moon. Not everybody, just a few hundred maybe. We were built up in the wilderness and most of the people who came since are here for the dungeon. Danger and excitement and exploration is at the core of what makes Foizo what it is, even if many of the people who live here now have become attached to their safer, slower lives.” Joe explained.
“And you want to see if I’m okay with moving some people to the moon to live in my dungeon?" Zoe asked.
“Exactly, yes. We think that we could help you get it to a point of being more sustainable for life, and then when things have settled down a little we could get the help from the capital with building a more permanent means of transportation between Foizo and Foizo on the Moon, eventually.” Joe said.
“Like a teleporter?" Zoe asked.
Joe chuckled. “Well, that would be ideal. But we were thinking more along the lines of creating a business opportunity for people capable of travelling to the moon to do so. Providing the training to handle the problems space travel poses and and giving them a place to arrive at to recover after the long journey.”
“Right, that’s probably a lot simpler. It’s a long journey though, even for me, you know?" Zoe asked.
Joe nodded. “Of course. It wouldn’t be something people do every day, but we’d always have people both here and on the moon capable of making the journey, even if it is a long journey, in case somebody needed to move back and forth.”
“The dungeon was also raided, at least once. I haven’t checked if it’s been raided again or not, but if we have people living there then they might be killed, you know?" Zoe asked.
Joe nodded. “As long as it’s only been raided by the one person you mentioned before, we feel confident in its safety at this point.”
“Alright. Fine. You’ve convinced me, but I’m not taking responsibility if something bad happens, alright? You need to make that clear. It’s my dungeon, but I’m not protecting the people in it. I’ll get my loyal minions to do their best, but they’re not gods, Joe.” Zoe said.
“Wonderful.” Joe clapped his hands together. "I’ll let them know at the next council meeting, then. If you could take a trip to the moon to check on your dungeon and see if anybody new has cleared it, that would be wonderful. We may also not end up doing it anyway, if people don’t seem interested in it.“
“Where are you gonna stay, Joe?" Emma asked.
“Me? Here. I have no desire to be on the moon.” Joe laughed. “But a lot of other people will be excited about it, and while talks were already underway about moving people there we thought it might be worth running it past our people.”
“Where are you staying, Emma?" Zoe asked.
“Here. The cats would hate the cold. No way.” Emma said.
“What if we could make it warmer so they wouldn’t hate it?" Zoe asked. ”Would you go live on the moon then?“
“If the cats could be comfortable… Maybe. I’d think about it. Probably not though. It’s just too far away and I can just grab a ride with you whenever I wanna go there anyway.” Emma said.
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