“Gash!!!!” cried Edge as he set Spirit down in the once town of Zoah. “Gash!!!”

Gash had to be alive. He had to be. He’s the only one who might know where Azel is…. Where the hell are you, you stupid son-of-a…

Edge looked around, in amazement. What happened here? he thought, The buildings haven’t been blown up. It looks more like they were burned. Or corroded. What happened to this town?

“Gash!!! Skiad-Ops-Gash!!! WHERE ARE YOU!?!?”

Spirit purred mournfully. He didn’t know where Gash was either, but it was looking like if they did find Gash, he wouldn’t be in a state to give them any information.

Edge took another look around, and saw nothing but despair. Everyone was dead. No, he couldn’t believe that. Everyone was dead except Gash. Gash has to be alive. HE HAS TO BE. That’s when Edge heard the moan.

“Urgh…”

Edge looked around, frantically. Someone was alive! Unless that groan came from his stomach. But he had just eaten not that long ago. Someone was alive! Was it Gash?

Yes, it was. Edge looked behind him and to the left, and saw Gash’s broken body lying right beside where Juba’s bar was when he was last here. I didn’t think Gash was a drinker, he thought to himself, trying to cheer himself up slightly. Edge ran over to Gash, and knelt down beside him.

“Gash? Gash! Are you alright?” Edge asked. It was only then he thought to look at Gash properly, and noticed that all the way down Gash’s back were burns. Third, hell, fourth degree burns. I need to get you inside, my friend, thought Edge, before noticing that there were hardly any buildings with a roof on them. Nevertheless, the bar still seemed intact, so that was where Edge carried Gash.

---

After washing Gash’s back with freezing cold water to calm the burns, Edge lay Gash down on the bar, then went out to look for more survivors. When there weren’t any, he came back. Jubas’ had been completely re-vamped it seemed. It was still a bar, but it was a more upper-class bar than it was before. The place was in nowhere near as much as a mess as it had been before, with drinks lying around in randomly placed containers. Instead, the place where Jubas’ chair was had had a bar installed, seemingly made out of monster armor, as wood was not supposed to be taken from the forest, as it was a sacred place.

Gash groaned again.

“Gash?” whispered Edge, “Gash? Are you alright, Gash?”

“Urgh…Edge?!…. Oh wait. I get it.”

“Get what?”

“This is Heaven. Isn’t it? Looks pretty much like Old Jubas’ bar.”

“Gash, you aren’t in Heaven. You’re….”

“You’re kidding?! I’m in Hell?” Gash shouted, and then looked up to the ceiling. “Bastards!”

“Gash, you aren’t even dead! You’re perfectly fine! Except for your back….”

“Yeah, well, it’s feeling better now. Edge, where is everybody?”

Edge shook his head. “When I got here, most of the people were dead. You seem to be the only survivor.”

“No. No, Edge, I can’t accept that! Have you looked everywhere in town?”

“Gash, it was a ghost town. You were the only one still breathing, let alone groaning.” Gash held his head in his hands. Edge thought he could hear crying, but he knew that Gash wasn’t a man who would cry. Certainly not in front of anyone.

“Liana…”

“Liana?”

“My wife, Edge. My wife. I was out getting some rations when…when…. Dammit! Why did it have to happen then?!”

“Why did what have to happen?”

“Pull up a seat, Edge, and I’ll tell you. But it’s a very disturbing story. And after I tell you my story, I want to hear yours.” A few drinks later, Gash was telling Edge his story.

---

“It was a few days ago it happened. Zoah had finally been rebuilt, after many years of hard work. We had everything just right. The trade routes were open and running well. The bar had finished, so that gave us something to do at night other than the obvious. Everything seemed perfect.

“None of this could have been done without the hard work of the Seekers. After we waited for you and you didn’t arrive, we thought Sestren must have destroyed you. We left the valley in search of places where we could help. We found Zoah, and helped the few people working on it for many years.

“When Zoah was complete, the Seekers didn’t want to leave. We disbanded, but we promised one day that we would once again challenge Sestren for his ownership of the world. I was personally hoping I’d never have to see the day the Seekers would have to re-unite and fight again. I was so tired of fighting.

“Eventually, I married a woman named Liana. She was one of the people working on Zoah when we arrived, and she had always had my admiration for her determination to get the town back on it’s feet. She was as strong as a fully grown Coolia too. For a while, she tried to convince me to start a family, but I didn’t want any children. I didn’t want to father soldiers for the next war which, although I hoped would never happen with all my heart, was always going to happen. Eventually, Liana even got used to this facemask I wear to cover my…. namesake, shall we say? We enjoyed living in this town, especially since we had ample supplies to keep monsters away, scent rock and so forth, and we also had some artillery to keep any military attacks down.

“But a few days ago, it happened. It was a day like any other, but then again, they always are.

“I was out, heading to the town shop for some grain and some Coolia milk, when suddenly, something seemingly wonderful happened. A strong wind blew, and a mass of cherryblossom appeared over the village. It looked beautiful, and I personally thought it to be a divine seal of approval.

“But that’s when it touched a bird in the sky, a Conana. The second the blossom touched the bird, it was awful. The blossom stuck to the bird, and steam rose off of its feathers. The Conana dropped to the ground, totally dead, and skinned. I was in shock. I looked to the other side of town to the children’s playground, and the children were all waiting to catch the blossom. I ran to them, screaming and shouting, trying to get them not to touch the blossom, but I was too late…

“The blossom didn’t stop with the people outside of the buildings either. Blossom landed on the church on the other side of town, and dissolved the roof in a matter of minutes. Anyone inside a house was doomed to the same fate as those outside. I was lucky, being fit enough to avoid most of the devil blossom, but I couldn’t dodge it forever. A few petals landed on my back, and the pain was unbelievable. I felt as if I had just been thrown into the Garil Desert sands, and had landed on a Lathum. I could feel my skin just vanishing, disappearing, and I could sense the steam rising up from where the burning was taking place. It was horrible. I couldn’t really see myself living through it, so I fell to the ground and did a short prayer to the gods, just to pray for my wife’s life.

“Before I closed my eyes and let fate decide my fate, I saw something over the town wall. A monster, bigger than almost any I had ever seen before. It was like a large tree, but in the middle of it’s branches was a single eye. And on all of it’s branches was that dreadful blossom that destroyed this town. I also saw another monster with it. A dragon. Not like yours though, this one had three heads. That was when I passed out.”

Edge was crying, and he didn’t even notice it until Gash pointed it out a second later.

“It was Tyrune.”

“Tyrune?”

“The three-headed dragon you described. It was Tyrune. A horrible, three headed dragon that’s been plaguing me since I arrived back from the Astral Plane. He’s strong, he beat Spirit in a fight, but I didn’t think he was as evil as this…”

“Don’t worry, I have a feeling you and Spirit will get him. Now, Edge, tell me about how you got here. In good detail, mind, I don’t have much of an imagination.”

---

For the next few minutes, Edge told Gash everything that had happened since he had left for the Tower. He talked about the Anti-dragons, Sestren’s various forms, and the visions he had seen just before he had battled Sestren. Then he told Gash about the dragon saying that he was not the Divine Visitor.

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Gash, “But one of our questers thought that. He said that the dragon might not be the Divine Visitor, but only a resource, a tool, of the Visitor. We thought him a fool and a disbeliever, but it turns out he was right. How ironic. Please continue, Edge.”

Edge carried on about how he had landed in the Garil Desert, and was saved by Tyrune when he met the Stryder pack. Gash grimaced, but Edge continued. He told of how Spirit was born at Raul and Falder’s caravan, how they found Paet in Tadcaster, and how Tadcaster had been visited by Tyrune.

“Ah, so that’s what happened to Paet.” Gash offered, “He left the Seekers after we were about halfway to rebuilding Zoah, saying that the place brought up ghosts or some crap, then headed off into the sunset.”

“Did that offend you?”

“No way!” Gash snorted, “I don’t offend easily, and besides Paet was too spoiled to be a real seeker. He knew a lot about the Ancient Age though, so that helped us a bit, but not as much as an extra man, with some strength, would have.”

“Well, in case you are concerned, he’s fine just now.”

Edge finished off his story, telling of how Spirit changed his form before battling Tyrune, and Paet giving him the book he had written.

“A book?” asked Gash, “Let me see.”

Edge handed Gash the book. Gash took it almost greedily, and started flicking through the pages at an incredible speed. He stopped the pages in a flash, and snarled at the book. “Look.”

Edge looked. The drawing…. or was it one of Paet’s geoscan photographs?…. was of exactly what Gash had described to Edge a few minutes ago. It was a frightening beast, which looked incredibly organic, and had the eye not been in the middle of it Edge would easily have thought it to be a normal cherryblossom tree. Then Edge looked at the description paragraph, which was in Paet’s usual, highly stylish handwriting.

This is what it said:

TERRABLOSSOM

Thankfully a rare creature, which grows closer to extinction with every passing year. They resemble normal cherry trees, with their beautiful blossom, but the beauty hides the truth. The male Terrablossom’s petals are all coated with a horrendous acidic poison. If it touches a person or animal, they have a slim chance of survival. If it touches water, the water either boils away or kills anything that drinks it. The more pink the blossom, the more acidic and poisonous it is. Female Terrablossom have purple blossom instead, which has a strong alkali coating, also corrosive though nowhere near as powerful. The reason for their rarity is that some recently sprouted Terrablossom die because of their own poison. Terrablossom reproduce by the same method as most trees and plants, spreading seeds and/or spores by use of the wind.

“So that’s what attacked you.”

“That is the profile of the creature that destroyed Zoah, alright. It was a male that attacked us, according to that book.”

“But I still don’t understand what Tyrune had to do with it.”

“Neither do I, kid. I don’t know why anyone would want to destroy a town as prosperous as this. Perhaps this Tyrune has a major problem with people in general.”

“He does claim to be collecting a “living tax” from various towns and villages. Perhaps Zoah didn’t pay up?”

“We never got the chance. Even if he did come to Zoah, he never asked anyone for anything. The sad thing is, I used to think dragons were our saviors. Look, Edge.”

Gash pointed to a large plaque above the bar. It was a picture that greatly resembled a dragon crest, like the one he had found in the ancient ship containing the pup, but the crest also had a shadow riding on it’s back.

“That dragon, Edge, is the Skydart dragon. It is said that…Spirit is it?…Spirit used to look like that before he reached his blue form. The shadow on it’s back is supposed to be you. Look underneath it.”

In carefully formed letters underneath the painting, for that is what it was, there was the message:

“In Edge, We Trust.”

Edge felt a crushing sensation near his heart. People had still remembered him for so long, and this world didn’t look very different to the world he had left.

“Gash, did I succeed? Did I save the world from the Ancient Age?”

“No, kid, you didn’t. In fact, I think you made it worse….”

“How come?”

“Is there enough drinks left for another 15 minutes of talking?”

“There’s enough left for an hour, by the looks of it.”

“Then I’ll begin,” said Gash, holding a newly-filled cup.