The adventurers all let out a collective breath they didn't realize they'd been holding. The tension that had gripped their hearts since they stepped into this cursed forest finally loosened.
Some of them dropped to one knee again. Some leaned against trees and others just stood there with eyes blinking slowly as if trying to wake from a nightmare that had somehow ended in a dream.
To hear that the people—those empty husks they had seen—were alive again and known that their minds and souls restored, exceeded every hope they had dared to carry.
Mark exhaled and ran a hand down his face.
"I thought this was going to end in tragedy and the god will appear in this world. Honestly, when we saw that… thing... that shadow thatt just appear few seconds in the temple," He shuddered, his voice lowering. "I couldn't even move. Could barely breathe."
"We all felt it," Jan muttered with bitter smile. "That god was like the sky itself was about to collapse on us. We weren't even close and it still felt like it could crush us just by existing."
Hund looked up at Erend. "Both of you fought it and defeat it head on, right? But how? I thought that thing wasn't something that can be beaten. I don't understand."
"We didn't exactly beat it," Eccar said, cracking his neck with a faint grin. "We survived it. That's the better way to put it."
They began walking back through the forest. The path was clearer now. The once-withered branches lifted, green peeking through cold white mist. The wind that rustled the leaves no longer carried cold strangeness, but calm.
Selene stepped closer to Eccar. "So what happened in there? Really?"
Eccar glanced over his shoulder, then looked ahead again. "We got our asses handed to us, almost. Thar'Zul-Vekar wasn't just some mad god. It was a griefing god. His whole world destroyed by lies and betrayal. They were a god left screaming in the void for so long. You can't fight something like that with usual means."
He paused for a moment, then smirked slightly. "Well... unless you're us."
Thorne frowned. "What's that even mean?"
"It means," Eccar said, voice low, "we stepped into the heart of madness itself. We don't just fight the god here but in their dimension. We also meet a Time Dragon, he froze everything in time and tell us something. But before that the god themsels showed us why they had become like that. They wasn't evil. They was just broken."
"That... sounds made up," Annette said, furrowing her brow.
"Sure," Eccar shrugged. "I wouldn't believe it either if I were you."
"But it's true," Erend said quietly from beside him.
The group looked toward him. His tone wasn't loud, but it silenced every question.
"He showed us the god's past," Erend continued. "It turns out that a Dragonborn destroyed its world under manipulation of something. The god couldn't handle it. All that pain twisted their soul. They lashed out. When we showed them the truth, they broke and then... they changed back to how they were before."
He looked at each of them in turn. "We didn't win by being stronger. We won because we stopped fighting and actually listen this time."
The forest whispered around them. The air was richer now. Every step they took carried less weight than before, as though the land itself wanted them to know it remembered their effort.
Esther blinked. "Wait… did you say you met a Time Dragon?"
Eccar raised an eyebrow. "Yeah."
Kaela gave a nervous laugh. "You guys have got to stop making it sound is normal."
"Normal's been dead for a while," Erend said dryly. He remembered that he was once a human that got a power of Dragonborn. So yeah, there is no normal anymore for him.
The group shared a quiet laugh that sounds awkward but genuine. The adventurers were exhausted, confused, and still a little bit frightened. But something else had taken root among them now. Relieved and hope that whatever happened next were not going to be too dangerous with Erend and Eccar existance.
They kept walking toward the edge of the forest.
Then the group reached the top of a low gentle hill where the trees parted to form a wide clearing.
The view stretched across the forest canopy and in the far distance, rising out of the green, stood the temple. The dark green silhouette of its structure glowed faintly in the lingering daylight. No longer a symbol of fear.
They all stopped there, wordless for a moment, then without needing to say anything they settled down.
Some sat on the soft moss, others leaned against tree roots or lay back to stare at the sky.
The sun had dipped low but had not yet disappeared, and the light was golden, warm, and scattered by thin clouds. A breeze drifted through around them.
"So," Ecar said casually, "anyone brought something to eat or drink? Because I'm starving."
Mark chuckled and shook his head. "Our rations were in our packs… those packs got roasted in the fight with those gray creatures."
"Mine too," Thorne said, sighing.
"I have nothing either," Jan muttered, patting her now-empty side pouch.
"Me too," Hund added glumly.
Kaela nodded in agreement.
"You mean we saved the forest and came back to no food?" Eccar said.
But before he could continue, Selene lifted a small enchanted pouch and gave it a shake. It jingled softly with glass vials and wrapped cloth.
"Some of us didn't charge blindly into every fight."
Esther gave a smug little nod. "We witches had to conserve. Magic's not the only thing we carry."
Eccar's face lit up. "You're the real heroes."
And with that, they began to unpack what little they had left and eat it.
It wasn't a feast but after everything they had been through, it might as well have been.
They passed things around, shared drinks, and finally sat in a circle.