The sky over Alpha Base was painted with the raw light of early evening—reds and oranges and purples that spilled across the sky and gave every building a halo and made every ripple on Silverwater Lake shine like molten gold.

  After nearly nine hours of training, Alex’s legs felt like they were packed with wet sand, and even sitting down made the muscles behind his ribs twitch. But he shook out his sore forearms and tried to ignore the day’s exhaustion so he could enjoy a moment of solitude by the lakeside.

  He stepped off the packed dirt path and into the soft grass lining the lakeshore. There was a small beach area, but mostly it was reeds and grasses that marched from the shoreline down into the shallow waters at the edge of the lake. Dragonflies buzzed low over the water, weaving and zipping between cattails that swayed in the light breeze.

  The training grounds behind him were quiet and looked like the aftermath of some old war, cast in deep shadows. Alex rubbed the back of his neck and breathed in the cooling air breezing in from the lake, trying to forget the day and let the tension flow out of him.

  Behind him the village was slowly switching from day to night mode. Lanterns flickered to life on either side of the entrance gate and staggered along the top of the palisade wall at intervals, their soft golden halos flickering slightly in the breeze. He could hear the sounds of the village still, but they were far away and not nearly as intrusive as life back on Earth generally was.

  Ahead, he could see a pair of night-shift guards walking along the jogging path, their silhouettes tall and dark against the fading sky. One of them carried a lantern that swung with each step, sending little arcs of light flashing across the grass. Alex only knew a few of the one hundred or so village guards, but he recognized their routine, having seen them at it down here on previous evenings. They would walk back and forth along that path, from forest break to forest break, all night. It seemed the company was at least a little concerned about what could wander out from beneath the trees.

  He found the large flat rock he’d used for meditation the previous weekend. It wasn’t much, but carving out a little quiet time at the end of the day down here by the lake was one of his favourite new routines. He climbed up and eased himself down onto it, crossing his legs with a groan that sounded a little melodramatic even to his own ears.

  “This is fine,” he muttered. “This is what athletes feel like all the time, right? Totally normal.”

  His ANIP’s small pulse in the corner of his vision disagreed, and provided a notification with links to various stretching exercises and comfort solutions.

  He closed his eyes, placed his palms on his knees, and breathed deep. The air wasn’t just cool—it tasted faintly green and a little like dirt. It was a natural smell. Almost like a petrichor smell you would get right before or after a light rain. Except there were no clouds tonight. Barely even a breeze.

  After a few starter breaths, he focused on the steady rhythm of his breathing. Vance’s morning drills had been brutal: endurance sprints around the track, followed by obstacle course rotations, followed by weighted exercises in the shallows of the lake. He felt waterlogged and every joint felt like a rusty hinge. His mind, though? It wouldn’t settle.

  He inhaled again, trying to push everything out. Some days this was easier than others though.

  Opening his eyes again, he looked across the darkening waters. The tree line, way on the far side of the lake, had a strong presence that had called to him from the moment he first saw it. It was ancient and primeval in a way that no forest back on Earth could ever be again. Towering trees that looked like someone had turned a redwood into a corkscrew leaned out over the lake’s edge and dense undergrowth kept everything inside a secret.

  The sun was falling down behind that side of the lake and the shadows of the trees stretched long across the water, dark and unmoving—staring back at Alex from across the lake. Ducks and other birds he had no name for squawked at each other from the reeds, occasionally beating out a tattoo on the surface of the water.

  The upcoming forest challenge loomed at the back of his mind, equal parts unsettling and electric. He wasn’t afraid; in fact he was pumped about getting the chance to finally get out and see how his team would work together outside the practice yards. But not really knowing what was out there, or what Connor’s team would pull to try and steal the win for themselves made him a little anxious.

  Vance had said the forest challenge was designed to be “manageable” at their skill level, but coming from someone who called sprinting through knee-deep water while carrying heavy stones a “light warm-up,” Alex wasn’t sure what “manageable” might mean in Vance-speak.

  This weekend was important. For the team, and for the show. Their first real test where they were expected to go all out. It wasn’t streamed to the show live, but over the next week they would have a lot of eyes on them and how they performed now would have ripple effects on how they were worked into the show later on.

  He practiced his breathing exercise and watched the forest.

  Light still clung to the surface of the lake, stretching in rippled stripes toward the forest. The reflection of the trees was jagged. Disturbed. He leaned forward and looked out at the water. Something had moved through the shallows earlier today too. Something big. The company said the lake was safe and there was only normal expected wildlife in the water.

  He frowned, leaning forward. But saw nothing else. Probably a fish breaking the water, trying to catch some supper.

  He cleared his thoughts and breathed, letting his mind wander.

  Away from the forest challenge. Away from his training. His friends floated into his mind once more.

  Ryan’s sarcastic humour “You are SO gonna get eaten first.” Jun's endless nerf-gun comparisons. Kira’s meticulous rule explanations and why her actions were allowed to break them. Jake’s dramatized Dwarvish accents.

  The original Side Quest Heroes. He wondered what they were doing right now. Probably playing some co-op video game. Maybe watching a movie. He missed it, but not enough that he would rather be there.

  He opened his eyes again, the painter's sky was softening into a lavender and orange bruise that peaked over the edges of the forest. Above the strange, unknown constellations were slowly revealing themselves, one star at a time.

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  His team really wanted to use the Side Quest Heroes name. But he felt guilty about it.

  Side Quest Heroes was their thing. Their name. Their identity. The four of them leaning over pizza boxes, scribbling on character sheets, recording episodes of their Actual Play livestream. Pouring their hearts into it even back when there were only twenty people watching on the regular.

  His team here—Jay, Ravenna, Sarah, Danny, Mel—they didn’t understand that history. They knew the show and liked the name. They were just excited to be a part of that something and Alex understood that desire. And he loved the idea too… so why did it make him feel so guilty?

  He was coming to understand that it wasn’t really even the use of the name that was making him feel this way. It was actually the knowledge that he was going to walk away from his old life for this new one. Using the show's name for his new team felt almost like he was replacing his old friends with new ones.

  No, it was more like just being tugged in two directions. He wanted to honor the life he’d had, the memories that got him here, without shrinking from the one he was stepping into. The world didn’t give people chances like this one. Ever. Proof was that he had to come to a whole new world to get this one. And it felt wrong not to seize it fully.

  Yet every time someone joked about using their potential team name, Alex heard echoes of his old crew cheering in his head, phantom voices that still felt stitched to the name.

  Being here couldn’t be about replacing his friends. He wasn’t choosing this world over them. But stepping into a new identity meant he had to carry the old one carefully, so it didn’t get crushed or forgotten. He wanted both parts to coexist. He just didn’t know how to make that happen yet.

  Maybe he would encourage all of his friends to try out for Dungeon Inc.’s next cohort.

  “Alex!” Jay’s voice cut across the lakeshore, bright and breathless.

  Alex blinked away his thoughts and turned. Jay stood on the path, waving both arms like he was signaling for an extraction.

  “Hey! Marcus says to get your butt to the Silver Gate!” Jay called. “We’ve got company!”

  “What does that mean? What company?” Alex yelled back.

  “The kind with high ratings! And stories!”

  Alex groaned as he stood. His lower back popped in a way that would have deeply concerned a chiropractor. Jay jogged over to meet him, already buzzing with excitement.

  Alex said. “I thought you were helping Danny with some drills tonight?”

  “We finished. He was too tired to go for more than an hour. When I left he was attempting to flirt with Ravenna for the third time today.”

  “Oh?”

  “She told him she would sooner date a Goblin.”

  Alex snorted.

  Jay’s grin widened as they walked back toward the village. “But dude, seriously, we gotta go fast. Marcus was practically glowing.”

  Alex paused mid-step. “Glowing?”

  “Yeah, he said one of the original teams is coming back to town.”

  Ah. Interesting. Dungeon Inc. introduced two new teams every six weeks or so. It took 4 weeks to train everyone up. Alex was in Cohort 14. Marcus and the Iron Fangs were in Cohort 11. Most of the pre-cohort 10 teams didn’t come to the village very often. They were out in the world. Exploring, taking down dungeons and living their lives. Some had gone to the Eastern Empire, and others were travelling through the Western Kingdoms.

  They were all in contact with the Producers, and their content streamed to the show, but they rarely came back to the village.

  Alex followed Jay up the path and through the quiet homes on the edge of town until the lights of the Silver Gate Inn and Tavern came into view. Alex turned to Jay who was grinning like an idiot in the dark.

  “Wait, do you know who it is?”

  Jay didn’t slow down, but he looked over with that big smile and said, “The Wylde Bunch!”

  Alex’s breath caught.

  The Wylder Company. Or, The Wylde Bunch to their fans. One of the earlier and most beloved teams on the entire show. Possibly one of the most successful teams too based on the amount of screentime they seemed to get. They were always up to something.

  Alex picked up his pace and focused on the Inn ahead.

  Jay laughed and slapped his shoulder, almost knocking him sideways. “Yeah, that company!”

  As Alex and Jay approached the Inn, the sounds of the night shifted to rising voices, bursting laughter, and chairs scraping across the wooden floors. The tavern’s windows glowed with golden lamplight.

  Jay paused at the door and looked back at him grinning. “Ready?”

  “Of course!”

  They stepped inside.

  ***

  If one insists on naming the greatest spells ever wrought, they will inevitably point to some apocalyptic working—a city erased, a god bound, a continent scarred forever. These are impressive, certainly. They are also failures of imagination.

  The truth is less dramatic, and far more enduring.

  For tens of thousands of years, our histories record the same cycle: arrival, devastation, adaptation and, inevitably, war. Whether it was new races emerging onto the world stage overnight or hordes of monsters spilling from hidden places. Our world is a porous destination for a much broader multiverse and every single newcomer has had to fight for their place.

  What finally broke the cycle was not a weapon, but the largest cooperative initiative in world history.

  Scholars of the Eastern cultivation paths and arcanists of the Western Colleges did what no battlefield ever achieved—they cooperated on a solution. Together, they designed a spell not to destroy enemies, but to organize the world’s population against the incursion of future threats to civilization. A lattice of perception and record, bound to the mind, impartial and inexhaustible.

  Thus was born what we now simply call the System.

  Its genius was restraint.

  The System does not grant power indiscriminately. It recognizes individuals, assigns structured paths—classes, as they are colloquially known—and records action with unerring accuracy. Deeds are measured. Kills are counted. Contribution is quantified. What once dissolved into rumor and hero-song became ledgered fact.

  From this emerged the Adventuring Guilds—not as random mercenary bands, but as civic instruments. Local leaders define the needs of the local community and the System formalizes that into local quests. Adventurers act. Results are verified. Rewards are dispensed. The chaos of past ages was finally taken in hand.

  This was the first spell ever cast that scaled beyond kings, beyond empires, beyond lifetimes. A spell that did not demand obedience, only participation. It turned survival into a profession, heroism into infrastructure, and desperation into purpose and it has no upper limit to the number of people it can help.

  Monsters still appear in the wilds. They always will.

  The difference is that now, we have a unified system to deal with those threats.

  On the Architecture of Survival

  Arch-Lecturer Iseval Thorne

  Enchanters’ Collegium, Third Circle

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