I've never been in the auditorium, but from what I could gather from the buzz around me, it's a sight to see. The morning sun shone outside, encouraging the sleep heavy on my eyelids to show itself. After being roused from bed before sunrise, it's expected.

My closed fist shielded my oncoming yawn, glancing at my companions on our way to the meeting place. As the party who would be making the appeal, it's imperative we get there early. Nazran's hair was as rigidly tied as before, but he had exchanged his armor and shirt-and-trousers combo into a suit like Cavya and Ahrian. Our leader, himself, had already beat us inside the auditorium, no doubt starting to exchange pleasantries and being a graceful host for the meeting.

Valren stayed in his armor, glinting gold and complimenting his rich, golden scales. He had returned not a day too soon after the extraction mission, bearing news about the progress of the alliance with the Southern tribes.

I took up the rear of the original Dragnasand Knights, finding myself walking alongside Heather, who had cleaned up as well. Her jagged red hair was smoothed back from her forehead and she had stepped out of her armor and donned a long trench coat over her formal sleeveless shirt and tight-fitting trousers.

Revery and Trink were dressed to the nines, matching the occasion as well. Suddenly, deciding to show up in my usual clothes seemed like a bad idea. But what could I do? I didn't have any time to prepare for this conference. When I glanced at Hye-jin, I found her dressed like Revery, with the color scheme adjusted to purple. She liked that color, anyway.

I almost did a double take when my eyes landed on the hairpin stuck in the bun behind her head. It's...

"That's seriously what you're going to wear, when Cavya said to strictly dress formally?" Hye-jin frowned at me when she noticed me looking. "Seriously, you're pathetic."

Heather clicked her tongue as we turned a corner through Valren's discretion. "Not here, you two," she said, casting at the streams of people greeting us as we neared the auditorium.

Hye-jin flashed the dragonkin a flat look. "What? I'm not starting anything," she said, her tone rising into a defensive inflection. She stuck her lip out as she surveyed me but didn't say anything more.

Within seconds, we reached a corridor so wide it would have been its own lobby. More adventurers dressed in the fanciest clothes I've ever seen gathered and loitered around, either clumping in small cliques or hanging out on their own.

As I felt more eyes land on our newly-arrived group and picking me out of the haze of clothes as an irregular, I sidled next to Hye-jin and nudged her with an elbow. "Would you um..." I gestured to my outfit and then to her. "Help me with this?"

I expected Hye-jin to shake her head and laugh at me, but she jerked her chin in a vague direction. "Let's go," was all she said before she began stalking away, the heels of her ankle boots tapping against the wooden floor.

We disappeared into an empty corridor, meant to house more offices and private rooms. With everyone waiting out in the lobby, it's safe to say nobody was here. Hye-jin stopped me before I trudged on any further. Then, she stepped in front of me, her face scrunched up in thought.

"Let's see..." she muttered to herself.

My limbs froze when both her hands slapped over my shoulders. "Stay still," she said. "You wouldn't want to mess it up."

I squinted. "Wouldn't that fall on you since you're the one who's using the skill?"

Hye-jin arched an eyebrow at me. "And you know more of my ability than me?"

Whatever my reply died in my throat. Another point for her, it seemed. "Do you think this is what's supposed to be the last quest?" I asked instead. I've been pondering about it last night, how there were no actual quests presented to us, not even in the menu we see that nobody else could. It's also why I haven't gotten enough sleep, but I wasn't telling her that.

She sighed. "Reform," she chanted. A faint light shone over my clothes. She moved her hands down the length of my arm, eyes focused on the fabric melding before us. "If you're talking about the war every guild is seemingly preparing for, I think so too," she replied. "From talking to Arzo, I realized we've landed on a Solarlume after the main quest in the game. A conflict of this range screams 'final quest' to me."

"Would it still involve the Princess?" My voice had faded into a small squeak as Hye-jin produced an iteration of a dark tie and began tying it at the base of my collar. Now, I looked like I was simply going to work rather than into a Solarlume-wide guild conference.

Hye-jin's hands paused on my shoulder as she checked her handiwork. "Maybe," she said with a sigh. "We're in the Central Empire, after all. A royal summon is bound to come sooner or later."

"What would you wish for, then?" It's such torture, asking that question and waiting for an answer—something I might not even want to hear. But hey, I liked tormenting myself, so here we were.

Her gaze flashed to mine, violet against green. Then, she averted her eyes. "Me?" she pursed her lips. "I'd like to be happy."

She inclined her head to one side. "You?"

I didn't need to think twice about it. "I'd wish to go back," I said. "I'd go back home, to them."

Hye-jin knew who I was referring to. I saw the recognition and familiarity flash in her face. She was about to say something when a figure whizzed past the corner. "There you are! Cavya's looking for you two! You should—" Ahrian paused on her way towards us, her round bird eye quivering in its socket. Why did she stop?

That's when it occurred to us three how Hye-jin's hands were still propped on my shoulder and how my back was pressed against the wall. Blood rushed into my face, the corridor seemingly becoming warmer. "Ahrian, it's not—"

The langkoor's head bobbed to the side, the feathers at the back of her head ruffling. "I didn't see anything," she stalked back to the direction she came from. "I didn't see anything."

A string of curses faded down the perpendicular hallway, matching her thudding footsteps. I turned back to Hye-jin to find her still staring after Ahrian. "Did that..." she met my gaze again. "Did we...?"

I did the best thing I could do in this situation. I laughed.

Within seconds, Hye-jin was too.

"Come on," I jerked my chin down the corridor. "Let's go."

Together, we made it back to the lobby. A huge set of ornate doors was thrown open, revealing a room crossed with a courtroom and a throne hall. Rows upon rows of seats in the audience surrounded a single, raised dais on the center. Balconies forming a semi-circle at the other end of the room were filled with several adventurers with grim and bored expressions as they surveyed the rest of the parties trickling inside and finding their seats.

Hye-jin and I made our way towards the row where we spotted Revery's blue hair and Heather's wings sticking out from the backrest. Valren's nowhere to be seen when we sank into the cushioned seats. Ahrian wouldn't look in our direction, insisting on tilting her head to the side so that her eye faced the center.

A shadow fell over me. Seating by the aisle could be a bit scary. "We'll be starting soon," Cavya said, a gloved hand resting on the pommel of his rapier. Until now, I didn't really know what the small dragon head sitting atop the hilt meant. "Be prepared to be called by the masters if they need more clarifications."

I bobbed my head and was about to ask a question about the masters in general when a chuckle rang from behind us. "Cavya, dear. It's nice of you to be here."

The entire row's set of heads turned towards a woman sauntering towards us. Her hair was shades lighter than Nazran's, styled in a combination of a tight, braided bun and the lower half forming a flowing curtain down her back. Her tailcoat opened up into a figure-cutting vest held by golden buttons and tight-fitting breeches tucked into dark knee-high boots. Her entire color scheme was white, maroon, and gold.

Beside me, Cavya tensed, his hand tightening the hilt of his rapier. "Karmi," he hissed, almost like how a threatened cat would.

A flurry of movement and I noticed Hye-jin's eyes bulge in my periphery. Did she know this woman?

"I see you've insisted on staying a Veteran even though you're well on your way to being a Master," Karmi grinned, her teeth seemingly elongating into fangs. The glint in her eye told me she's busy gloating over Cavya for reasons I would never know. "Such a shame. You would have made a fine addition to Dragnasand's Round Table."

Cavya's whiskers twitched. The rest of us could only sit back and watch the drama unfolding. "Unlike a certain someone, I don't have an ambition as high as their pride."

Karmi's eyes hardened. "It isn't an ambition now that it's true," she said. "And you? What else do you have to show for you to have called this unnecessary meeting?"

"Considering you've spent your while wasting away in boring paperwork, you'll have to listen intently to this discussion to not be left out," Cavya replied. His tone remained neutral and diplomatic, but the implied meanings underneath them still packed a punch. It's enough to conclude that something did happen to these two.

Karmi scoffed, her own gloved hand resting on her side. My eyes latched into it when I realized it's a sword. Rather, a rapier. And sitting atop the hilt...

It was the same dragon head on Cavya's blade.

So, that meant—

"Let's see who's ahead of the information game," Karmi flicked her hair off her shoulder and strode off. But not long before giving Cavya the side-eye and adding, "Dear."

As soon as her sweeping coattail and the sound of her boots were swallowed by the crowd, Cavya's shoulders relaxed. "Well, that's that," he sniffed, his nose quivering. A hooked finger found a home in his collar, tugging at it. Now that I realized it, even the scarf tucked over their collar and vest looked the same. Eerily the same.

Cavya gave me an absentminded pat in the back before heading off to the central dais where a wide metal plate awaited him. It's no doubt for magigraphs.

"Greetings, Masters of the Guilds of the Eastern, Northern, and Central Towers," Cavya started, his voice enunciated clearly even though he could be shouting to be heard by the people at the back of the balconies. A glass podium I never noticed contained his stature up to the chest. "And joining us for the first time, the representatives of the Southern Tribes and their Guilds."

With a brief nod to Valren, Cavya stepped aside as the dragonkin replaced him on the dais and began rattling off the names of the tribes he had managed to get to come here as well as their representatives. He made sure to throw a couple of compliments and praises here and there—appealing to the Southern custom of making people feel accepted.

Hye-jin leaned over to me. "Why aren't the Western guilds here?" she asked. Her voice was enough to be considered a whisper but the adventurers in front of us flashed us annoyed looks still.

I considered ignoring her then because of the looks we're getting, but decided against it. She didn't like being ignored. "After the Crusade, the Western Tower was sanctioned so they can never form official parties and guilds," I explained, drawing from the information I received from one of my numerous trips to the Grand Archive with Cavya. Of course, none of those trips yielded any clue about going home. "Because the ones that existed during the war helped the Monarch's armies and even provided ethrans, weapons, and warriors for them."

To avoid having another anarchy as big as what the previous Monarch launched, the Solarlumean Council of Guilds decreed that no official guild or party would be recognized. Its army was sequestered off and most of its resources and reserves were divided among the opposing territories.

Did that make Arzo's plan justified, then? According to Hye-jin's report, he was only doing this for the people of the Western Tower, just so he could bring their glory back to them. Was he on the lawful side in trying to build a better world for the Western region?

The answer was simpler than how I liked it to be. The memory of Arzo gutting a small, defenseless girl flashed in my mind. I closed my eyes, attempting to remove the image from my head. Having a noble mission and a righteous goal didn't mean people could do everything they could to achieve it, even going as far as to do something that'd hurt a lot of innocents. It certainly didn't mean one should start a war in an era of peace. A peace so much blood was spilled for in the first place.

"...Dragnasand Knights and its temporary branch, the Crimsons will be leading the infiltration mission in order to eliminate the head," Cavya swirled his hand into the magigraph I didn't even realize he had started presenting. "We called this meeting because we need your help in holding off the main force that's bound to cover the front lines. We have data to prove the number of nether beasts populating this area," he circled his hand around one spot in the magigraphed map. "And it continues to grow. Every day."

"Can we abstain from this fight?" a man clad in green all over, from his hair to his shoes, raised a hand from the Northern guilds' balcony. "My guild is short on funds and can't afford an all-out war."

A wave of murmurs joined his sentiment. More masters began raising their numerous concerns. One didn't have enough adventurers. The other didn't have enough weapons and smiths. Excuses, a lot of them.

Cavya's hand slammed into the metal plate, making the magigraph fizzle out in a glitch of sparks. "We didn't call for this meeting just so you can wiggle your way out like snuffed-out glowworms," he snarled. The fur around his head puffed out and his irises slitted until they're mere black lines amidst the olive expanse.

Then, he straightened, his features rearranging into a calm expression. "If we do not stop this from its root," he said. "We might as well usher in another Crusade ourselves."

Silence swept through the crowd. The man clad in green covered his face with a hand, his face darkening with the grim realization. "Cavya smirked, knowing he'd won. He leaned against the podium, gripping both sides of the lectern. "Now, who's with us?"

Hands flew into the air. I didn't need to count those that remained down. Because bringing back Laela Betradis and whatever she brought with her when she passed—it would unearth the forgotten darkness this world endured as well as the memories of the lives whose blood watering Solarlumean soul belonged to.

Living the past in the present was never a pleasant experience.

Take it from me.