As a reminder, due to the chapter reorganization, this is the epilogue for Act 1, while the previous chapter posted (Chapter 12) is meant to be the START of Act 2.
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The moment they left what Storyteller had called the “development zone,” the group of adventurers on the bus let out a collective sigh of relief.
Metal structures, humming machinery, and alien precision gave way to something far more familiar. The road narrowed into packed earth and stone, winding through a forest of towering deepwood trees. Their trunks rose thick and ancient, bark dark as iron, branches spreading wide enough to swallow most of the cavern’s distant glow. It felt… normal.
Strom hadn’t realized how tight his shoulders had been until they finally loosened.
He wasn’t the only one.
Around him, the adventurers shifted in their seats, tension bleeding out in small, unconscious ways. No one said it aloud, but the relief hung in the air. After everything they’d seen in the Nexus, this — trees, dirt, and a proper road — felt like stepping back into a world they understood.
Or at least something closer to it.
The quiet didn’t last long, however.
A few of the adventurers began asking questions — cautious at first, then growing sharper. About the “station town.” About the scale of the operation. About who controlled what.
Storyteller answered most of them with a bright, calm smile, her tone relaxed as she offered details that clans or sects would have guarded closely.
Not that everything came so easily.
Strom listened without speaking, leaning back in his seat as he watched the goblin woman at the front of the vehicle. He had spent enough time around Guild politics to recognize the careful edge beneath her words. He mentally noted just as much of what she didn’t say as what she did. For all that this place presented itself as open and welcoming, it was clear to anyone experienced enough to listen that what they were seeing had been carefully curated.
The conversation continued for several minutes, questions rising and falling in a steady rhythm, until Storyteller finally announced they were approaching their destination.
The bus fell quiet as tension spiked once more.
Strom didn’t need to see the faces of his peers to know the kinds of thoughts that had taken root in their minds. After all, he was thinking the same thing.
If what they had just seen had been little more than a roadside outpost… what would the true center of this place look like?
It didn’t take long for him to find out.
Even decades later, that first glimpse of the goblin city would remain burned into his mind.
Yes — city. To call it anything less would have been foolish.
Strom straightened in his seat, his gaze lifting as the trees ahead began to thin, then part.
The bus fell into utter silence.
The first thing they saw was the wall.
It rose from the earth like a cliff, stretching left and right until the trees swallowed its edges. Smooth-cut deep stone formed its body, each block fitted so precisely that the seams were nearly invisible. Dark metal ribs ran through it in broad bands, anchoring the structure in a way Strom had never seen before.
The wall was massive — wide enough for their bus to drive along the top without crowding the edges, and tall enough that even the tallest trees barely reached two-thirds up its face.
Halirosa’s walls came to mind immediately, though where those practically glowed under his spiritual sight thanks to the sheer quality and quantity of the arrays engraved across every surface, this wall barely tickled his senses. The only arrays he could detect lay along the metal ribs, and even then, he couldn’t begin to guess their purpose.
Yet staring at it filled him with a quiet, primal dread.
Something in him recoiled, as if every instinct warned that to assault these walls would mean certain death.
Then there were the towers.
Not one or two.
Dozens.
Maybe more than he could see from this angle.
They rose in dense clusters beyond the wall, packed so tightly they blurred together, each one reaching toward the cavern’s upper reaches. Rows of windows marked their sides in clean, repeating lines, and Strom found himself counting without meaning to.
Even the smallest tower stretched four or five stories above the wall.
Ten.
Twelve.
Fifteen—
Eventually, Strom forced himself to look away, heat creeping into his face at the realization he was staring like a fool.
He dropped his gaze to the base of the wall and the clearing that surrounded it.
Fields stretched outward in careful sections.
Trees grew in neat rows, their branches heavy with fruit that should have taken years to reach such size. Water-filled paddies shimmered beneath thin layers of mist, spirit energy rising in slow, visible currents. Beyond them, golden grain bent under its own weight, and other crops filled the land in orderly lines.
In the air above, small constructs moved in steady patterns.
They dipped and hovered, pausing as if inspecting each plant. Goblin workers stood along the edges of the fields, directing teams with quick, practiced gestures.
Inside the bus, the silence somehow deepened, and no one dared to break it.
The bus continued, passing by farmlands that would have made the wealthiest nobles weep in envy without a second glance.
They passed through the gate without even slowing.
Inside, the scale only grew worse.
Streets stretched between the towers, wide and orderly, filled with constant motion. Deep Goblins — hundreds, perhaps thousands — moved through the dense maze of structures with quiet purpose, as though nothing about this place was unusual. Some paused to watch the bus pass, though most didn’t bother.
Strom leaned back in his seat, his thoughts dulling at the edges.
At some point, he realized he had stopped trying to make sense of it.
The bus carried them deeper into the city until it finally slowed, then came to a stop in a central square.
Compared to everything else, the space felt almost… restrained.
Smaller buildings ringed the square, their construction more grounded, more familiar. It was easy to see that this had once been the center of the village, even if it could no longer truly be called that.
As the adventurers filed out, Strom noted a group already waiting. Guild members — many familiar — stood alongside several official-looking goblins dressed in dark suit coats.
After that, events blurred together.
Strom found himself following instructions almost mechanically as the relief team was divided into smaller groups, each assigned to one of the waiting adventurers — likely the volunteers from the previous expedition Storyteller had mentioned.
He remembered being told they would act as guides over the next few days, at least until everyone found their footing.
The guide assigned to Strom’s group led them away from the square, through a series of streets toward the outer blocks. The towers there were shorter, broader, less imposing, though no less precise in their construction.
“Apartment buildings,” the guide had called them. Temporary housing.
By the time they reached their destination, Strom barely registered the exterior before they were ushered inside.
Rooms were assigned.
Keys were handed out.
Strom moved through it all on instinct. He made sure his people had what they needed, that no one got lost in the process. He checked doors, confirmed assignments, and offered a few quiet words where needed. All the while, he clung to the routine, to the familiar weight of duty, using it to steady himself.
Only when everyone else had settled, did he finally part ways with their guide — with a promise to meet again the next day — and step into his own room.
The door opened with a soft mechanical click.
Strom turned — and paused.
The space was smaller than he had expected. Not cramped by any means, but after everything he had seen that day, and knowing how often the powerful felt the need to impress, he had expected something… grander.
Instead, a single, well-ordered room awaited him. There were no dividing walls beyond a recessed section to the right, but neither was there any clutter or wasted space. Everything sat where it should, arranged with a quiet precision that felt intentional rather than decorative.
He stepped forward slowly, then stopped.
Despite being several stories up, the floor didn’t give beneath his weight, even in full armor. There was no creak, no shift underfoot. It held firm like polished stone, yet lacked the chill and roughness he expected. Even the sound of his boots was muted, swallowed before it could echo.
A bed rested against the wall, low and wide. No carved frame. No ornamentation. Just clean lines and pale material stretched tight across its surface. A folded blanket lay at the foot, waiting for him.
Beside the bed stood a narrow desk and chair, both well-made but plain. On the desk sat a strange tablet he first took for a mirror until he noticed its surface was pitch black.
Strom frowned and looked up.
The ceiling appeared unremarkable at first glance — flat, smooth, without fixtures. Yet light filled the room evenly, with no visible source. No flicker. No pulse of spirit energy. Just steady illumination that didn’t strain the eyes.
To the right, the recessed section opened into what he assumed was a washing area.
A basin sat at waist height, formed from the same seamless material as the walls. Above it, a narrow fixture extended outward, and above that, an actual mirror. A shallow drain was cut cleanly into the floor on the opposite side of the alcove, another fixture hanging above it. Finally, what Strom recognized as a toilet from some of the fancier inns he’d stayed at sat against the far wall.
He approached the basin and reached out.
The moment his hand crossed the threshold, a soft click sounded. Strom jerked back as a stream of clear, crisp water flowed from the fixture. It ran freely for several seconds before stopping again with another quiet click.
He stared.
It wasn’t the first time he had seen a water system like this. But those required complex arrays and rare water stones, making them expensive and difficult to maintain. Here, he saw none of that. Worse, he hadn’t sensed a trace of spirit energy while it ran.
He stood there for several long moments, then lifted his gaze and looked around the room again, trying to make sense of it.
Strom let out a slow breath.
At some point, he realized he had stopped trying.
The questions were still there, pressing at the edges of his thoughts, demanding answers he didn’t have. But they felt distant now. Blunted. As if they belonged to someone else.
He stepped out of the wash area, the faint scrape of armor the only sound in the room, and turned toward the bed.
Each step felt heavier than the last.
He felt drained in a way no battle had ever managed, and as he stared at the bed, Strom reached up and tapped the hidden quick-release rune on his armor.
The plates fell away with a dull clatter.
He sat down.
The mattress gave beneath him, softer than anything he had ever felt. But he was too tired to question it.
He exhaled once, then let himself fall back.
Sleep took him before his head touched the pillow.