text: The misty hallway vanished, to be replaced by a dark cave of worked stone. My boots landed on gray brickwork, and I saw stone columns line the tiled walls, though a fair bit of both bricks and tiles had long crumbled into pieces. The ceiling over my head had some mural painted onto it that had not survived the passage of time.
  
  "My lord," Breyn said, saluting with his hand over his chest. "Was there trouble?"
  
  "There you are!" Val said impatiently and at the same time. "Where were you?"
  
  "Some trouble," Breena answered, touching my cheek fondly and still smiling brightly. "But not anymore."
  
  Breyn's eyes widened, and he quietly pumped his fist from behind Val. I shrugged, not really able to correct him.
  
  "Part of Stell's stalker had been hiding in the Pathway and was waiting for the both of us. We were able to kill that part of him, though."
  
  Breyn and Val's eyes widened.
  
  "How did he do that?" my Asian sister asked. "I thought those things were secure!"
  
  "They are," Breyn answered slowly. "To all but a handful of races, who do not need Pathways to travel. The Earthborn and Starsown are two of the only ones, but there is a third. That race was the reason Avalon fell to siege. Did you…" The young Woadfolk's eyes widened to almost the size of dinner plates.
  
  "No," I shook my head. "Not the same one. In fact, it was just a small piece of one, that Breena found a way to kill. We'll talk about it some more when we get everyone together. What can you tell me about this place?"
  
  "It's the place from where we first came to Avalon," Breyn said with a shrug. "Only difference is an untold number of centuries."
  
  "Everyone else is currently scouting the area," Val offered, currently better at reading me. "No hostile animals nearby, but there's a lot of ancient plant growth just outside. Some bird song, but no large animals. They could just be giving us space. But I don't think people of any race have been near this in forever."
  
  "It was supposed to stay in use," Breyn offered. "Truth be told, we were expecting someone from the Woadlands to come to our aid back then as well. But my guess is that the invaders sealed the Pathway from their end, and then were sealed themselves by Avalon's magic. The Pathway must have been forgotten over time."
  
  "Is there anything else of interest we've found in the ruins?" I asked. Both of them shook their heads.
  
  "Nope," Val said firmly. "Alum's people are still looking around, but from what I could see the place has been picked clean. I did my best search checks already."
  
  "Search checks?" Breyn cocked his head.
  
  "Gaming reference," I provided.
  
  "It means I used my special Shadow magic to look for hidden objects on literally every nook and cranny in this place," Val explained. "All I found was a belt buckle and an old tinderbox. And those are so rusty that I'd guess them both to be a century old, probably from this place's last random visitor."
  
  "You were already that thorough?" I asked, surprised. "How long where we gone? Nevermind, one of you needs to go notify the rest of the team that Breena and I are back!"
  
  "Done already," Val said with a shrug. "Mindlink, remember?" She pointed to her temple.
  
  I sighed in embarrassment.
  
  "Right, thanks for being smarter than me, sis." I covered my face, then added mentally, <hi guys.>
  
  <Morning,> Eadric grunted.
  
  <Everything okay?> Karim asked, concerned.
  
  <What were you doing in there alone with Breena?> Weylin asked smugly.
  
  <Ha-ha,> I sent sarcastically. <Just fighting for our lives. Nothing serious.>
  
  <Well I hope you both enjoyed yourselves,> the elf continued, unconcerned.
  
  <Unfortunately not,> I replied. <I was being literal.>
  
  <You guys do know I can use this thing too, right?> Breena asked, confused.
  
  Silence greeted her.
  
  <Ahem,> Karim interrupted, inexplicably bothering to cough through the link. <Are you both alright?>
  
  <Oh we're fantastic!> Breena said enthusiastically. <In fact, I'm better than ever now! Right, Wes?>
  
  Her tone was affectionate even through the mindlink. Karim remained silent, while the other two bastards started snickering.
  
  <Val says there are no nearby hostiles, and that the ruins nearby have been picked clean,> I pressed on through the nonsense.
  
  <So far,> Eadric grunted. <They already built a perimeter to wait for you. Stonework looks defensible enough for a temporary camp.>
  
  <There is some glyph work here,> Karim said next, <but it's all spent. I could reactivate if I had to, but I don't think it does anything but create light and provide heating.>
  
  <I'm still scouting around us,> Weylin answered last. <I've seen a few signs of large animals, but no signs to indicate a large predator lives here. Wait…> he said suddenly. <Amend that. We are just outside the territory markings of some kind of predator… and I think I see elfsign. An old tribe of my race probably lives within a dozen or so miles of us.>
  
  <Really?> I asked, surprised. <I didn't know your race originally came from the Woadlands.>
  
  In fact, I could have sworn Stell said the oldest elven civilization came from the Lightborn Lands.
  
  <We probably don't,> Weylin answered. <Our oldest civilizations are in the Lightborn Lands, but there's a few of us on almost every world. In fact, we may even be related to the Avalonians.>
  
  <For all you know, most of you are related to Wes,> Karim offered in a neutral tone.
  
  <Could be,> Eadric pondered. <Especially on their mothers' sides.>
  
  Weylin offered an angry retort that I tuned out while the other two Testifiers just chuckled in response.
  
  <Alright,> I sent, changing the subject. <Let me head outside and get my bearings. We can make this a temporary camp while we explore enough of the place to figure out where we are in relation to the rest of the Woadlands. Do we need to worry about the tribe of elves being hostile to us?>
  
  <Depends,> Eadric replied calmly. <If most of the women recognize you, their husbands will shoot on sight.>
  
  <Him?> Weylin sounded incredulous. <Be realistic. Our lord can't even figure out how to get to first base with the ladies of Avalon. Pick another Earthborn.>
  
  <Focus,> I growled, a little more harshly than I meant to. Which meant they won. <Elf tribe. Hostile or not hostile?>
  
  <Not hostile, unless you show up naked, covered in blood, and immediately start harassing their women.>
  
  <Agreed,> Karim added. <Harass the men only.>
  
  I tuned them out and began to walk outside the building. Val went somewhere to talk about something with Breena while Breyn walked with me to the cave entrance.
  
  "So," he said quietly. "Sounds like the discussion went well?"
  
  "Stell has bound her Satellites to a magical oath to prevent them from disclosing her feelings about me," I said bluntly. "So I am either lover material or permanently friendzoned, and to such a degree that she is afraid to disclose."
  
  "Friendzoned?" Breyn said in a shocked voice. Before I could explain what the term meant, he continued. "That sort of thing actually happens? It's supposed to be a myth! Fathers use it to frighten young men into courting women properly!"
  
  "In all fairness," I said dryly. "Young men on my part of Earth have no idea how to court women properly, and young women have no idea how to handle our affections." The reverse was probably true as well, but Breyn didn't seem ready to hear that.
  
  "That's not—I mean I can't—no." Breyn suddenly shook his head. "Forgive me, my lord. I thought it would be a much simpler matter, like courtships in the Woadlands are. What matters is that you have done your part."
  
  As I walked outside the caves the sunlight struck me clear in the face. I was confronted by a world that wasn't shrouded in mists but bright sunlight and green leaves. The whole forest hummed with an amount of life Avalon still couldn't match, despite being free of civilization all this time. <Life,> the branches and shrubbery rustled at me with the wind's lips. <Life>, the birds in the trees all sang. <Life>, the cracking branches on the ground said here and there. <Life,> a woman on another planet had begged me all those months ago to help her protect.
  
  "No, I haven't," I said, finally making a connection I should have made ages ago. "My part is to fight to save all the worlds she cares about, including the one I'm standing in. My part is to make her people safe, and make her safe so that she can actually think about something other than her own survival."
  
  I reminded myself that I wasn't in high school anymore where courting a girl meant taking her to dinner, as well as a bunch of other rules that kept changing because no one on Earth can apparently agree on how men and women should treat each other. I was in a group of worlds just like the old video games my father made me play, where the hero had to fight alongside the woman he loved, complementing her strengths and negating her weaknesses. Now courtship meant battling through dozens of different worlds against dragons, pig men, and dinosaurs, so that by the time he rescued her he had also made the world a better place in the process, giving her a safer kingdom to live in. If I really wanted to let Stell know how I felt about her, then it was time to throw down literal blood and sweat, and battle and win until I could give her seven brighter, better worlds. Worlds where her people were safe and she herself was free of creeps like Cavus.
  
  That was the courtship right now, I decided. And somehow, it was about damn time.
  
  The wind rustled all the leaves around me as I kept walking outside.
  
  "Challenge accepted," the leaves whispered quietly. "The Woadlands bear witness."
  
  Breyn looked up, but I kept my eyes forward, walking over to Alum. The older Gaelguard was peering into the far-off sky with an intent, troubled expression.
  
  "The others tell me we are safe for now, but I'm guessing you just found a problem."
  
  The Gaelguard nodded.
  
  "The flora is much like it was all those thousands of years ago. There are no Woadfathers, but I had already been told of that. But something is still amiss, unless the seasons of this land no longer number four."
  
  "I'm no local," I answered carefully. "But everyone I know insists that the Woadlands still has four distinct seasons, especially in this region. Spring, summer, fall, and winter, in that order."
  
  "I see three seasons," the bearded warrior replied. "Happening in tandem. Behold, spring." He pointed the flowering plants all around us. "Behold, winter." He pointed again, and far off into the distance I saw massive clouds forming a line for the largest cold front I had ever been taught to recognize. Beneath them, and barely visible from the shadow the clouds provided, a solid white stretched down, as if the ground below was completely wrapped in snow or ice.
  
  It was a forest-killing cold, and on a level far beyond what I had been taught to believe as natural for this planet. That made it a supernatural disaster, one on the level of Trial or Tumult.
  
  "And finally," Alum said gravely, pointing to a dead tree some distance away, "behold... blood."
  
  I was about to stupidly inform him that blood didn't actually count as a season before my eye caught the details of the tree he was pointing at, one just past the area our patrols covered. It looked withered and old, out of place compared to the rest of the foliage around it. What looked further out of place was the tumorous mass of flesh growing on its side, pulsing in rhythm with the blood-colored sap dripping from barkless patches of the decaying plant.
  
  <Not blood-colored,> Teeth insisted inside. <Look again.>
  
  I did so, reaching out with a sense gained by my Blood magic. I confirmed it; actual blood, and not tree-sap, was dripping from the rotting plant. It wasn't dying. It was mutating, into something that was neither plant nor animal. Looking at that, and as well as the white wall looming in the distance, I realized I knew on a basic level what the Woadlands were facing.
  
  This planet was facing two Trials at the same time.