There was enough in the inventory for one new doll body, I considered as Kuch paid, or rather Petula did in their stead. My first big purchase through House Cordis, at a very low price thanks in part to the gifts that spurred heavy discounts, alongside the merchant not knowing the true value of this valuable material. They did know it was very rare, so it wasn't a complete ripoff against them.

  A pity though that they didn't remember from where specifically they had gotten it, not that I was holding my breath anyways. It seemed to be an establishing pattern that for every significant clay deposit, there was enough kaolin clay rocks in there for one or two bodies, at least based off my current experience. The rocks themselves were hard to process and I wouldn't be surprised if most were discarded when found, especially when puppets weren't around to use it to make more of their kind.

  Moving on, the merchant did have some other rocks of interest. "Indeed, that is coal!" they proudly boasted. That was enough for Kuch to produce a new a bag and start taking whatever was left after the various blacksmiths had descended upon the vendor. Given how the guards were beginning to fidget, that'll probably be the last purchase Kuch could make at the stall for the present, which was fine. This should be enough for me to make a few ingots to upgrade my own tools for better capabilities, maybe even a little bit more.

  Disappointingly though, the merchant admitted again they hadn't recalled where they picked it up. However, this time there were at least a few more details. "I remembered picking a few bags up from some passing villages in Viszal," they elaborated on after some more urging. "Alderash gave them for some food in exchange. A good trade, they very well couldn't eat coal for the winter."

  "Coal in Viszal," Petula mused, eyes narrowing. "I think that could be a recent find, else Teodor would've mentioned it sooner. Hardly the first time an existing mine's found a new deposit."

  "Likely so. Do you think it's the closest one?"

  "Has to be, otherwise brother would have mentioned something else already." The vampire grimaced. "But even so, if we don't know the settlement name, then it could be troublesome to locate and work with."

  "Hm. Mordred, maybe-"

  Suddenly Kuch's head snapped to the west, and so did mine. Petula and Mordred stared, then help reassure the surprised merchant that everything was fine, just some instinct had likely flared up that make the armored figure suddenly so unresponsive. Eventually, Kuch stiffly resumed motion, stepping back to just follow the two women for the moment. They wouldn't speak again for a long while, not when all parts of my mind were suddenly very focused on what was happening through Frie.

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  Unlike before, it was like I bearing witness to how the memory unfolded quite directly. Perhaps it was because of how much magical energy had been poured into unlocking this one, or just my overall investment in general. But when I beheld the scene, I knew immediately why this had taken so much more effort to coax out.

  Few wanted to remember when the world fell and burned around them.

  The sky spruce quivered in the ground, the lone survivor of whatever tumble had brought the entire low island already. Surrounding it was its likely siblings, none of them having survived the same descent as intact with broken stems. They were dead, and so too were the bodies littered around them.

  Young. Old. Uniformed. Civilian. It didn't matter- they all broke the same way, falling like a doll with its strings abruptly cut. That was the most horrific sight for me, and Frie felt nauseated in my stead. I forced the gaze away from them and to the revealed horizon, the destruction of the skyscrapers providing a great view, revealing the world beyond, ablaze.

  Those same warships that once safeguarded the skies of these floating islands now scoured the lands below, their massive guns bringing forth death with every shot. Yet all the destruction they wrought on the lands below was met with equal fury, as I witnessed a team of spellcasters unleash a devastating spell barrage that brought one low, magical artillery to counteract advanced technologies. Its frame screamed as it crashed to the ground, the impact obliterating those who fought unending between sides no longer cleanly defined. Not when all was covered in ash and blood.

  But those which brought death were not the only targets for the magicks. My hand curled up into a fist when I watched more magic surge forth and impact and slam into a low-floating island, hitting where those vast crystal deposits had once been. Ordinarily it wouldn't be at such elevation or be even suffer catastrophe from the damage- but when the island began to abruptly plummet like a meteor, I achieved realization.

  To achieve what they had, with fantastic floating cities of scale never before seen, they had violated a cardinal taboo of their people. They had overtaken and overtaxed the crystals deposits. Now poor in magic, a flurry of offensive spells was enough to destroy the last of what had once been a seemingly endless reservoir, and bring them down low. How many lives were snuffed out in that instant, the price eventually paid for such greed when the island crashed down to join the world?

  "I underestimated it," Frie hoarsely admitted, speaking blankly to the scene they bore witness to. "I'd thought it maybe just a collection of squabbles among kingdoms. Perhaps it was simply remembered that way as how it had all started.

  "Yet these Crystal Conflicts had instead been the absolute and total eradication of the world. The end of Shin, with no adventurers to save the day."

  FIRE (Death, flood, drowning, end).

  The catastrophic loss of life did not stop the battle. If anything, it seemed to intensify as warships began to rage further, indiscriminately bombarding everything. No longer was it focused on battlefields- instead, they seemed to spitefully target castles and kingdoms, bringing total destruction to all. No mercy was given, and they expected none in return when another was shot out of the sky.

  The land itself seemed to churn and buckled under such destruction. The landscape I had once known so well and traveled across so confidently across warped and changed. Mountains were annihilated, then recreated when volcanoes spewed up. Madness seemed to grip everybody, magic and crystals spinning out of control with none to scream 'stop.' So further did it go, an apocalypse that surely spelled the end of the world.

  Maybe, I dimly realized, this had been the fate written when FLOW had shut down. With the original developers long gone, nobody had been left to care about the servers for a game gone defunct. Every adventurer had simply vanished, leading the people of this world to move on to a new era without them. They had- and brought destruction onto themselves thanks to the greater atrocity that was the abuse of magic than any terrible technology of my old world could inflict.

  LIGHT (End, end, end, end).

  The smoky and hazy clouds parted as a dark light descended. A familiar sight to any in Lighthouse- the entrance to face the one known as Harbinger had opened. Yet none stepped forward, too mired in their conflict to even notice or care. So that pillar intensified, the lure of the raid boss intensifying, looming, promising the total destruction of Shin should none heed its challenge.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  None cared when their world was already lost.

  Yet moments before it would enact their dark promise, glowing, brilliant lights suddenly shot in from somewhere beyond the horizon, their number making my breath hitch. Ten of them, in total. My mind froze, then began to rapidly calculate the trajectories. Had they come from the sacred temples scattered across the world? Activated and summoned by the prayer of the living and dying in that moment? It had even been how the fight to start the raid to begin started-

  They converged into a single ray that then met the dark pillar and then shot upwards, climbing up and up to the stars above. Such was their brilliance that finally, the lost light returned to the eyes of those fighting and all stared in awe at the pillar, patterned so much like stripes that wrapped around a singular pole.

  A lighthouse, one that shone so radiantly despite the darkness within.

  Then the warring energies detonated, sending a rolling tide of ash and dust to envelop all and that was the last thing the sapling would recall for a long while.

  The memory ended and Frie gasped, finally breaking their long meditation. The gesture sent the accumulated snow on their head falling down onto their face, leaving behind trails of wetness on their cheeks. Slowly, hands slowly rose to wipe away tears where there were none, leaving me to take in the vivid recollection.

  Yet before Frie had time to properly process it all, the sky spruce groaned and its branches shook, not from wind, but its own motion. Instantly the doll returned to focused meditation and nearly panicked. Bringing the memory to surface had stirred a single emotion in the ancient sky spruce.

  DESPAIR (Hopeless, descent, grounded, death)

  It remembered the heights of what it once was. It now juxtaposed it with the lows of the world I had experienced it so far- and found life itself wanting now. Because of its venerable age and awakened consciousness, with maybe a bit of help from the overwhelming magic coursing through its form, it could actually fully awaken and act.

  By uprooting the entire forest to destroy those descendants whom had brought it and the caretakers it had loved low.

  My main body was hissing with a bit of panic. This actually would be a midgame catastrophe if left unchecked. Something that ordinarily would be something adventurers would start stretching muscles out for- but I don't think even Mordred could fight an entire ecosystem by herself! Not without blowing her cover sky-high!

  I had to do something through Frie! "Your anger is understandable, but misplaced! What was done to you and the sky peoples had been an atrocity, yes- but wiping out a civilization unknowing of the actions so distant from them is not the answer!"

  RAGE (Revenge, fury, retribution, obligation).

  It felt it had to, for there was no other answer to these overwhelming emotions. And because of how long trees slumbered and perceived the passage of time, the recollection felt just as fresh as yesterday. Great, I think I really screwed the pooch there, Lighthouse would be impressed. Kai would be giving me compliments while Eagle probably gaslit me into giving just one village to slaughter. No, no, no!

  What could I say? Ugh, why wasn't there any charisma skills or the like! Oh right, because the developers saw fights as content, so why would you run from them? But I really didn't want one now, tempting as it was to see if Kuch and Frie could take care of it between the two. Being an adventurer was more than that even, I remembered that so well with flying across the sky islands-!

  Something stirred, not from the earth crystal core that Frie was rooted in, but instead from the shell around it. The body quivered, feeling the faint echo of a dragon's roar that knew the joys of being in the sky. One it would help to remind with a single pulse into the tree- a memory to reciprocate the one being provided.

  I gasped at the sight of flying islands, my excitement almost pitching me over the edge of the airship that Birchbranch was piloting. "Woah, no crazy movements you crazy puppet!" the elf retainer barked with a scowl. "I only just got my license, I'm not a good flier yet!"

  "But look! Look at all those amazing aircraft!" I exclaimed, eyes surely shining with admiration and wonder. "They all look so happy, just soaring through the air so freely! And who could blame them!"

  "Flying is pretty nice," the pilot admitted. "Pity Cordelia's apparently not a fan of heights."

  "Her loss!" my master hollered with a grin from where he pulled alongside us on his cycle-flier. His friend Joan giggled along from where she rode on the backseat of the elegant craft. "Come on. Race you to the meeting point!" Mikel dared and zoomed off.

  "Hah, he really shouldn't have said that," Birchbranch darkly said and pulled at a lever. "Strap yourself in, Noel. We're taking this a level up."

  Despite his warning, I just clung there to let the wind caress my face. It was a miracle that I didn't fall off, but I trusted my elf colleague. He knew wouldn't let me fall and so, I experienced the thrill of flight with a joyous laugh, matching to the beat of wings in the background-

  That was wrong. A dragon...hadn't been there. Frie clutched at their chest, briefly suspecting the source of that muddled detail in, then noticed that the sky spruce was suddenly very still. It no longer shook with restrained rage. Hesitantly, they laid a hand back to the tree and felt its consciousness rapidly fading, a single emotion enough to sooth and lull it back to sleep.

  Memory (Happiness, nostalgia, wanting, longing)

  "You want to return to the skies one day too, huh?" the brawler quietly asked, closing their eyes. "It's possible one day, maybe. I don't know how I'll make a new floating island- but I can use parts of your wood to make a new airship. Then you'll take flight again. How about that?

  "And if that isn't enough- the people to the west, they feel the nomad blood in their veins. They could be descendants of those sky wanderers. How about I bring them back to the skies again too, so that you all can fly together once again?"

  Future (Acceptance, yearning, hope, cooperation)

  "Then please, let me collect some of your sap- so that you can be the one who will them back. Bring back the joy of the ascent, not the despair of the fallen. The freedom of the skies, not the prison of the ground as you know it."

  It was already asleep, but there was one last faint ping of acknowledgment. It agreed to work with me. Good, I'd successfully converted a rampaging tree into a venerable ally now. I might have to wake it up one day again to ask more questions, as Frie's time here had given rise to new questions while answering so few of them, but I also hoped that when I next awoke it, it was to show off the reclaimed skies.

  And the happiness found in racing for that new horizon.

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