I invited them into our tent and dragged out a few battered fishing chairs so everyone had a place to sit. They settled in around me while I stayed on my cot. My team watched the newcomers with raised eyebrows and quiet confusion, but there was no hostility in it. Mostly, I think they were just trying to catch up to how quickly the day had flipped from war to… whatever this was now. Jess and Siva sat on either side of me while Shawn hovered behind us in his usual relaxed posture, leaning against a bedside table like he was waiting for a bus.

  Guitar guy’s name, it turned out, was Steven. Steve for short. Of course it was.

  He gave everyone a curt nod and jumped straight in.

  “When the barriers open, I need you to bring her South,” he said, gesturing to Farisyah.

  Farah had pulled a children’s book from her inventory, and Farisyah had made herself comfortable on Jess’s cot, flipping pages the way you do when you have read the same story so many times that the words feel familiar even when you are not really reading. She was quiet, but the mask over her mouth made that quiet feel imposed. It was not her choice.

  I still couldn’t get over Steve’s voice. It had that late-night radio DJ quality, smooth and calm, the kind that could talk you through an empty highway at two in the morning and make the world feel less broken than it was.

  I raised an eyebrow, and Steve took it as an indication to keep going.

  He exhaled before adding. “She’s a Bard. A powerful one. She needs to learn how to control her voice, because it can be a weapon, but it can also be a gift to anyone who hears it. I could teach her, but she needs a proper bard guild.”

  “Okay,” I said carefully. “But what’s in the South? Why there?”

  South of Singapore meant the Central Business District, which used to be all glass and steel and money. Towers packed tight together, bank logos glowing high above the streets, the kind of place that made you feel small even before the world ended.

  It was also where the city kept its landmarks, the ones tourists took photos of and locals pretended they did not care about. Marina Bay Sands, with three massive hotel towers and a ship-shaped skypark balanced across the top. The Singapore Flyer, a giant Ferris wheel that hung over the skyline. The ArtScience Museum, shaped like a white lotus, sitting by the water like it belonged in a sci-fi movie.

  Then the answer clicked in my head, and I knew it before he said it.

  “The Esplanade,” Steve said.

  “The Esplanade,” I echoed at the same time. It was Singapore’s main performing arts centre, the place people went for concerts, theatre, festivals, exhibitions, and everything that counted as culture back when we still had the luxury of calling it that. If there was a bard guild anywhere in this mess, it would be there.

  Across the tent, Farisyah kept turning pages, but I caught the way her eyes flicked up for half a second. She was not reading at all. She was listening to every word, and she was pretending she wasn’t.

  “Why can’t you bring her?” Shawn piped up from behind me.

  I had been thinking the same thing. I also wasn’t sure how he was so certain there was a guild there.

  Steve took a moment. He looked down at his shoe, like it had something important written on it, then shifted in his chair and dragged it a little closer. When he finally looked up, his face had settled into something grim.

  “When you did what you did,” he said, “it didn’t wipe out all of the Temple. Not everyone relied on system augmentations. Some of them still have traditional powers and abilities.” His eyes flicked briefly between us. “Like us.”

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Siva stirred beside me. Jess looked away. They understood it a second before I did.

  Apparently so did Shawn.

  “You’re going hunting,” he said flatly.

  Steve nodded once, slowly. “I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. There are people who’ve chosen not to leave the West, and there are more who physically can’t. We need to make sure they’re safe before we move on.”

  Jess stood and crossed the tent, then sat beside Farisyah on the cot. She started stroking the little girl’s hair with careful, gentle motions, speaking to her in a low voice that I couldn’t quite make out. Farisyah stayed still, but she leaned into it just enough that it made my chest tighten.

  “How do you even know there’s a guild there?” I asked, then gestured toward Farah. “And what about you?”

  Farah had stayed quiet the whole time, but it wasn’t a calm quiet. It was the kind that felt like pressure building behind a wall. She was watching, listening, and holding herself together through sheer stubbornness.

  “It’s in my class description,” Steve said. “When I chose Bard, it told me. Not every class has a guild, but the ones that do… we know where to find it.”

  “I go wherever she goes,” Farah said.

  Her voice cut through the tent, calm on the surface, and sharp underneath. She finally lifted her head and met my eyes.

  “And Chris,” she added, “if you use her as a weapon again, may whatever god is overseeing this world help you.”

  Then she stood and walked out.

  I started to rise, instinctively, but Steve raised a hand to stop me.

  “Give her time,” he said quietly. “She’s not really angry at you. Not in the way you think. She understands what you did. That doesn’t mean she has to like it. She’ll come around.”

  “Yeah,” Siva deadpanned from my right, “Chris has that effect on women.”

  I turned slowly to look at him, and Shawn snorted behind me. Jess started chuckling too, soft at first, before turning into a proper laugh.

  Farisyah looked up at Jess laughing, and I saw the crinkle at the top half of her face as she copied it. Even with the mask, the smile was obvious.

  For a second, the tent felt warmer than it had been before.

  I didn’t want to argue out loud with guests in the tent, so I opened the Four Horsemen chat.

  Chris: Guys, there is no way we are suddenly responsible for a kid.

  Shawn: You are not. You heard Farah.

  Siva: I’m with Chris. We still don’t know what’s waiting in the South.

  Jess: Come on. She needs us. We only have to get her to the Esplanade. What do you call that in games? A fetch quest? No, wait. An escort quest.

  Shawn, Siva, and I looked up at Jess. She was still stroking Farisyah’s hair, and the little girl had somehow snuggled even closer, like Jess’s lap was the safest place left in the world.

  Shawn: Look at you, going full gamer girl on us.

  That, somehow, settled it.

  We spent the next few minutes talking through the practical details. Steve filled in the bigger picture while we talked. Most of the survivors were heading North under Andy’s leadership. The disabled, and the disfigured Temple fighters who could not travel, were staying behind in the West under the care of a group of healers. They were talking about turning part of the school into a sanctuary. A church, in the old sense of the word. Not doctrine. Shelter.

  Rajan and his men were preparing to head North too, but they were doing it on their own. They were not joining Andy’s group, and I was not surprised.

  Siva shared what he had learned from Andy during his trip. Andy had never truly left the North. They had found the community hinted at in the note, and they built something like a working commune around it. When Siva rode in and asked for help, Andy and his people basically did a speed run through hell just to unlock access to the West. Now that it was over, they were heading back to what they had built.

  We also heard that people were waiting to speak to us back at camp. Shaheerah. Prema. Andy too. That could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, my body was still pretending it was fine, and my mind was not even trying.

  I left Steve with the others as they continued talking and stepped out. Farah was standing a short distance away, staring into the woods surrounding the water tower.

  I stood beside her, not really knowing what to say.

  We stayed like that for a long time before she finally leaned her head against my shoulder. After a while, I put my arm around her and pulled her a little closer. It was not romantic. It was just human. It was something we both needed.

  And as we stood there, taking what comfort, we could from warmth and presence, my mind drifted again.

  The South.

  I had a feeling the next storm was already waiting for us down there.

  In the back of my mind, the GM’s message pulsed.

  [I’ll see you soon.]