Marco wakes with thoughts of the conversations he had the night previous with his new permanent party members. Shen seems to be a good person, stable just like his element.

  He pulls back the comforter and stretches, the morning sun streaming in from the window across the room, cream-colored curtains pulled back. Marco smiles as he remembers not only Shen, Ben, and himself coming to an agreement on forming a team but also that his coking last night increased his Affinity by a percent.

  “With my limited experience it is hard to say what increase a single percent represents.” Marco thinks, pushing himself into a sitting position and continuing his stretching- years in kitchens and bakeries have made his stretching routine sacred.

  “Today is the day that House Ivory leaves for the wall. I’m a little nervous to be returning to the Deadwoods but excited to fight with my team and potentially find a new party member.” He thinks, pushing himself to his feet finally before heading toward his favorite place in the Manor, the shower.

  Several minutes later Marco emerges from the bathroom leading a fog bank of steam and heat. He heads toward his closet and starts to shove all of the extra clothes that House Ivory provided him into his [Inventory], getting dressed in his under armor gear. A plain but form fitting black tank top and the almost leggings before dressing in his armor pant but leaving the top pieces in his storage space.

  He exits his room into the hustle and bustle of a large amount of people preparing to go on a trip. House Ivory is bringing the entire staff and every family member is required to attend; housekeepers will transition to taking care of the barracks-style housing and gardeners will leave their garden behind in favor of the community fields at the wall.

  Marco reaches his second favorite place in his new world, the dining room. The sisters have prepared their usual travel fair along with Marco’s favorite burrito and a stack of ration bars. He greets Ivory house members and House staff alike, with kindness that is returned with smiles and thanks for the delicious meal last night.

  Everything was a hit with the crowds, the curry receiving rave reviews; the vegetarians loving the depth of flavor and the uniqueness of the monster ingredients. It turns out that lemongrass doesn’t exist in this region of the world and the Tangle version last night was their first experience with the delicious flavor.

  “I should go find a quartermaster or someone similar to see if I can’t ease the burden of transporting so much material with my [Inventory].” Marco thinks to himself, navigating the house until he find Eileen, Quartermaster of House Ivory.

  “Hello Eileen! I have a storage space, Oren probably let you know, but I have a ton of space free and am happy to help transport things to the wall.” Marco offers, hoping to be useful.

  “Hello Traveler, if you’d like to help than we are happy to oblige. Please grab stacks E-G, if you have space for that much material.” Eileen greets him and directs him toward the labelled stacks of gear and material.

  Marco grabs all of it, nearly filling his [Inventory] and then heads off to find Ben, hoping to chat with him about what to expect on the journey. Walking through the halls, filled with paintings and pictures that tell the history of House Ivory, awe-inspiring as always. He quickly finds the [Light] Mage, packing his last things into a box and passing it off to a Transportmage contracted with House Ivory.

  The Transportmage wraps the box in layers of swirling [Air], lifting the box into the air and making the weight near nothing, it quickly joins a huge stack of others in the air.

  “Hey Ben! How’s your morning going so far?” Marco asks, walking toward the other man.

  “Good morning, Marco! The day has started well and the rest guarantees to be interesting.” Ben greets Marco, standing up from his kneeling position and leading Marco out the front door of the House to go mingle amongst the crowd gathering there.

  “Greetings Marco! Are you excited for the trip today?” Violet says from behind him, causing Marco to jump slightly at the unexpected voice so close to him.

  “Yes ma’am, a little nervous at the unknowns of the trip but excited to grow and see more of Omnia, even just a small piece.” Marco says, greeting the Matriarch of House Ivory.

  “The journey to the wall, once a structure named The Wall of the Kingdom and the border of Eldermyst, now a structure of decrepit stone deep in the rotten forest of the Deadwoods, will be a simple thing but we will be harried by Skeletal Scouts, Fodder, and maybe some Zombies.” Violet explains.

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  “Those are undead types, right?” Marco continues at Violet’s nod, “I’m excited to fight more monsters, unfortunately we won’t be finding many ingredients during our stint on the wall it seems.”

  “It is uncommon to find non-undead dungeons in the area but it has been known to happen.” Violet says, “Between the dungeons and the occasional plants hardy enough to survive in the Deadwoods without corruption you should be able to find things to cook and experiment with.”

  Marco nods, excited by the prospect of unique foods and culinary experiences, he is even more excited for the stint on the wall.

  It takes the rest of the family members and staff most of an hour before they are ready to depart but then they are on the road, Marco travels with Ben most often but occasionally walks with Coron or chats with the sisters about the usual fare they prepare at the wall.

  They explain that most of the food that they will be consuming is being carried with them by contracted Transportmages or will come with contingents of House guards that show up at the first of each month. Marco learns that they will be taking over the ‘ownership’ of the wall from Family Ebony, a human family of Dark Warriors, famous for pushing back the border and making deep dives behind enemy lines and known for their lich-slaying prowess.

  The trip out of the city and into the living part of the forest is without issue but soon Marco is back amongst the gray-green grass and washed-out star-shaped leaves of the Outer Deadwoods. They immediately encounter Scouts, some in the shape of small animal skeletons others misshapen jumbles of bone held together by the glowing green Curse Mana.

  The simple scouts are easily dispatched with a single bolt spell from Marco or the hundreds of others around him. The jumbles of bones are a little bit harder to kill, often requiring the body to be broken down into shard or smashed into dust to dispel Curse Mana within.

  Marco participates in the sniping of Scouts and starts to realize his piercing [Salt Bolt] isn’t the best match up against the undead creatures that he will be fighting for the next four months. He focuses on his spell in between monster kills, focusing on returning the projectile to its blunt cubic form, he decides to call it [Salt Shot] to differentiate the attacks.

  He tests it on the next jumbled Scout, the new [Salt Shot] smashing into the jumble of bones with massive force, dusting the creature and dissipating the Curse Mana. “Nice! That is way more effective than I thought it’d be. It’s probably the combination of an effective damage type and the opposing element.”

  Marco takes conjured a projectile and keeps it spinning around himself, his version of Ben’s [Light] fidgeting. They make good progress through the Outer Deadwoods and are approaching the border to the Inner forest when a crowd of Fodder lead by a couple of Zombies charge at them from the dark tree-shaded woods.

  “Incoming!” Someone calls from the head of the traveling column and projectiles begin to pour from the mass of House Ivory people.

  [Fireball] [Icicle] [Frost Bomb] [Dark Slash] [Catapult] [Root Strike] [Blast Wind] fly out of the group of people easily turning the group of humanoid skeletons into shards of bone and rotten dry flesh. All of the attacks churn the gray and dried out ground of the Deadwoods into a cloud of nasty smelling dust. [Earth] Mages grab the dust and pressing it back into the ground before the group surveys their surrounds and start to move forward once again.

  Violet stands watch over her family members and friends, like an ancient tree standing vigil over its younger brethren, not allowing her shadow to slow the other’s growth. She watches all the projectiles fly and destroy the disgusting undead creatures, smiling at the ease that her family members dispatch the monsters.

  The cross the border from Outer to Inner Deadwoods and the green finally loses the battle completely to gray. More roving groups of Fodder dotted with increasing numbers of Zombies are dispatched by House Ivory and company. Fighting through the gray world of the Deadwoods for several hours, the relief is palpable when they can finally see the wall in the far distance.

  The wall is a huge edifice of gray stone, pockmarked with age and overgrowth, hard to gauge how large the defensive structure is from this distance but it takes up a majority of Marco’s vision. It takes the large group another two hours to arrive at the gargantuan structure that used to be the border between kingdoms.

  Marco marvels at the massive wall, easily one hundred feet tall, and twenty-five feet thick, the wall covers a massive amount of land, stretching left and right for as far as the eye can see. Violet steps forward as the group slows to a halt, stopping in front of humongous portcullis and calling out in a booming voice.

  “THE FORESTSONG AND THE HOUSE OF IVORY REPORTING FOR DUTY!” Violet’s voice echos through the Deadwoods.

  “Welcome back to the wall, Forestsong and House Ivory.” A distant voice calls back, a captain from the Ebony Family most likely. The portcullis in front of Violet rattles open slowly, an older human [Earth] Mage controlling the metal and raising it into the air so House Ivory can enter their new temporary home.

  “Greetings! Mages and Warriors of Ivory please report to the marshalling field and Staff please report to Chamberlain Augustina Ebony to start the changeover of the guard.” The [Earth] Mage says, quickly introducing himself as Gatekeeper Hugh Ebony.

  The combatants of Ivory split off to follow the directions given to them by Hugh and the staff move to find the Chamberlain. Marco follows Ben, Shen, and Coron toward the marshalling field on top of the wall, up several hundred stairs, Coron cheating by hovering up the thin shafts next to the stairs meant for the purpose. Shen pulling a similar move but with a small [Earth] platform raising him up the side of the shaft.

  “I need to figure out how to levitate myself around with [Salt], I'm tired of having to walk up all of these stairs already and this is the first time.” Marco thinks to himself, remembering his fight with the Cursed Wolves and his early attempts to pick himself up.

  He reaches the top of the stairs, not winded because of his physical buffs but the number of stairs still staggering. He looks out into the distance, getting his first view of the Cursed Lichdoms.