Kosh was a city of gold. Its spires caught the morning light like lances of fire, and its markets roared with life. Here, the six companions hoped to lay the foundation of their dream — a modest inn at first, a sanctuary where the ideals of Eternal Conflict could take root and spread.
But dreams, they learned quickly, were expensive.
The inns of Kosh were not merely buildings; they were monuments to wealth. Each stone cost a fortune. Each permit, a king’s ransom. "I say we negotiate," Baris muttered darkly, half-drawing a dagger in one crowded marketplace. Trevor caught his arm. "We earn it," he said. "The right way."
Opportunity came cloaked in velvet. A wizard, all gleaming robes and sly smiles, offered them a different path: "Retrieve a relic," he said, "hidden far to the north. Enough gold to buy not just an inn, but a palace."
Trevor grinned. "One job. Then we build our future."
Even Rand, cautious as he was, agreed. Biff rumbled happily at the thought of fires and feasts. Peren nodded silently. Moroseth only narrowed his draconic eyes, but he said nothing.
At dawn, they set out — crossing the endless golden fields of the Exgol Plains. Here, proud and fierce tribes roamed, blades flashing in the high grasses. Under a blood-red moon, they fought their first true battle — steel against bone, arrow against breath. "Maybe next time," Moroseth said dryly, flicking blood from his blade, "we let Peren do the talking."
Beyond the plains, they reached the coast, where the Whisperwind Narrows frothed and screamed under leaden skies. Their dinghy — little more than driftwood stitched together with stubbornness — bucked and shuddered with every wave. "If we live through this," Trevor roared above the spray, "I'm naming the inn 'The Fool’s Oath'!"
Biff whooped, nearly tipping them into the surf. Even Moroseth allowed himself a rare chuckle.
Somehow, they survived.
Darkwood Swamp awaited. A place where the air grew thick with rot, where the trees leaned low to whisper lies.
It was there, in the endless mire, that they found the hidden basin.
The gems were not offered on a pedestal. They lay submerged in the deepest black water, guarded by traps older than memory — twisted roots that lashed out like serpents, spectral vines that tried to drag them into the muck, half-rotted beasts lurking under the surface.
Progress was agonizing.
It was Baris — clever, impatient Baris — who saved them. Muttering ancient words, he channeled a burst of magic that forced the black water aside, parting it long enough for Peren and Moroseth to dart in and snatch the shimmering stones from their resting place.
No one realized what they had truly stolen.
They thought only of gold, of freedom, of home.
And the world shuddered.
Escaping the swamp bloodied but unbeaten, they pressed onward. The Silverback Mountains rose ahead — towering peaks shrouded in mist, their green shoulders lost beneath tangled vines.
It was there that disaster struck.
Following a narrow deer trail, they stumbled — quite literally — into a gorilla nursery. Younglings no bigger than children shrieked and fled, and the companions froze, horrified.
Then came the roar.
The Silverback Guardians — massive, bone-armored beasts — came charging down the slopes with rage in their eyes and death in their hands.
There was no fight, not yet — only flight.
The companions ran, crashing through undergrowth, leaping over broken roots and streams, arrows thudding into the trees around them.
And then, through the smoke and mist, they saw it:
a low, two-story building where no building should have been.
The Traveling Inn.
They burst through its doors just ahead of the first war-cries.
Inside, by a flickering hearth, sat a man who looked carved from the mountains themselves — Merrick, the Keeper of the Inn.
He rose slowly, as if he had been expecting them all along.
"You'll want the second floor," he said simply, handing Peren a battered shortbow as casually as one might pass a loaf of bread. "They’ll come through the walls."
And come they did.
The gorillas besieged the Inn with savage fury. Catapults hurled hives of angry bees, black clouds swarming through shattered windows. Ballista fired massive tree trunks that shook the walls.
From the second floor, the companions fought.
Biff hurled shattered furniture into the attackers with wild glee.
Peren moved like a shadow, breaking arrows mid-flight.
Rand’s shields of light turned aside the worst of the bees.
Moroseth’s arrows pinned war chiefs to the earth.
Baris froze warbeasts in mid-charge, his magic burning the air cold.
Trevor kept them moving — shouting warnings, calling targets, binding them together.
The night stretched into eternity.
But they held.
At dawn, as the first fingers of light crept over the bloodied fields, the Inn shuddered —
groaned —
and vanished.
They landed, battered but alive, back in the fetid heart of Darkwood Swamp.
And somewhere, far deeper in the mists, something had awakened.