The stars had begun to dim, like ancient lanterns drawing their last breath.
Everett stood beside Gloria and Guruji atop a floating ridge, the expanse of Zone 7 unfolding before them like a galactic scroll.
"So… if we're starting a guild," Everett asked, "where do we go? Do we register with the Federation?"
Gloria shook her head slowly, her gaze distant.
"No. Not the Federation."
A pause.
"It is a separate power. Older than most powers. Older, even, than the Second Interstellar Era. It is called the Guildmaster's Accord.
Or, in the archaic tongues of Seekers: Vareth'Zor Mendreth.
The third most sacred authority in the Milky Way."
"And who governs it?" Everett asked.
Gloria exhaled.
"It is led by a being cloaked in legend. One of the peak Tier-Four Mystery World Powerhouse."
Guruji, eyes distant, finished her words:
"Sea Scepter Worldlord."
His voice barely carried, yet Everett felt the name settle like a weight across his chest.
"One of the great Mystery Worldlords," Gloria confirmed. "He holds the Sea Scepter, and with it, he bends the law of guilds and legends."
"He resides in our very own Zone 7. That is why this region is called the Holy Land of Guilds. Countless guilds have risen and perished here… but this is also where the greatest began."
Everett nodded slowly, understanding dawning like a slow starrise.
"And where do we find this Accord?"
"In the heart of Zone 7," Gloria said. "On a neutral planet surrounded by twenty eternal rings of judgment and light."
Guruji lifted his hand, tracing a pattern into the thin air, a forgotten sigil flickering briefly.
"Orvanyss," he said."The Seat of Scepters. The Guild-Heart of the Spiral West."
They decided to go.
But first, there was the feast.
Not of necessity—but of ritual.
Though all three—Everett, Gloria, and Guruji—were Mystery Masters capable of drawing sustenance from cosmic energy, they chose to eat.
A table floated under starlight, conjured from the deck of a nearby traveler's halt. The food was simple—synth fruit, spiced rootstock, and warm cloud-bread—but there was laughter, and silence, and something older than hunger.
It was tradition.
A reminder that before the cosmos, there were people.
Afterward, they rented a spacecraft.
These days, spacecraft were as common as cars once were on old Earth. They could be summoned, rented, or traded across galactic networks with a few pulses of credits. Gloria and Guruji, having quietly built their wealth over six long months, handled the transaction with ease.
The craft that arrived shimmered like liquid starlight. Its form resembled a ship that once sailed oceans—not skies. Its hull curved with grace, sails of plasma arcing like wings across voidlight.
"This is what's popular these days?" Everett asked, surprised.
"It's called a Void-Courier," Gloria replied. "The new aesthetic is nostalgia."
They sailed.
Through Sector C, across Zone 7, past nebulae that glowed like weeping flowers.
Days passed.
On the seventh day, Everett, Gloria, and Guruji sat on the deck, playing cards beneath the artificial gravity shield.
Every time they played, they lost.
Guruji, smiling faintly, adjusted his shawl and won again.
"Never play cards," Everett muttered, "with a man whose class is literally touched by prophecy."
Gloria sighed and leaned back.
"Or fate."
Guruji gave his usual cryptic shrug.
"It's all… the help of God."His voice was mild, but the mystic twinkle in his eyes said otherwise.
They laughed.
The stars above watched in silence.
There was no one else—only the three of them, adrift in the ink of space.
Everett stood, stretching slightly. His eyes glinted—cold, reflective, ancient. As if the Frost Realm itself still whispered through him.
"Before we move forward," Everett said, reaching into his coat, "there's something I need to give you both."
He produced two shards—translucent, jagged gems the color of pale blue flame. They shimmered with a faint frost, and mist curled from their edges.
Gloria blinked, leaning forward. "Are those… from the Frost Realm?"
Everett nodded. "These are Realm Shards—fragments of that realm's anchor. I forged them while you two were preparing the ship and supplies."
He stepped forward and placed one in Gloria's open palm. Then, the other into Guruji's waiting hand.
"These," he said, "are keys to the Frost Realm. You can access it now—partially. But only if you're within one kilometer of me. That's the limit of my current connection radius."
Guruji's expression became unreadable, then softened into a serene nod. "So we walk in your shadow now… yet together."
Gloria held up her shard, watching the icy mist spiral off it. "We can actually enter it? That place with the frost creatures, the twin suns, the cursed ice?" She grinned. "What an honor, Commander Miracle."
Everett chuckled. "Don't push it, Gloria."
She grinned wider. "Very thank you for trusting us."
But Everett shook his head slowly, his voice quieter. "These aren't about trust between us… They are us."
There was a beat of silence.
Then, as if understanding passed unspoken, Gloria smiled. Guruji closed his eyes briefly and gave a slow, reverent nod.
"Yes," they both said in unison.
Everett leaned on the railing, watching the endless black.
"Let's make a new world," he said suddenly. "A real one. A world that stays. One that no Mystery Sovereign, no Foreign One, no Mystery World or further powerhouse can break."
Gloria stood beside him, her expression gentle.
"That's also a kind of life, isn't it? A vow… made of hope."
Everett nodded."Let's protect it."
Then, Guruji stood.
He stepped forward under the fractured light of the twin moons—their reflections swirling across the ship's obsidian surface. His shadow stretched long, unnaturally long, trailing into darkness.
He did not look at Everett. He did not look at Gloria.
He looked somewhere far older than stars.
And when he spoke, the universe seemed to still.
His voice was dust and starlight, worn by age, etched with memory.
"We are the remnants of a cradle long abandoned...A guild not of warriors nor wanderers—but of witnesses.Witnesses to ruin, to survival,to the long night that follows the fall."
"We are Apoche.The last ripple of a broken age.The first echo of a world yet born."
A wind passed—but no grass stirred. There was none.Only silence. Cosmic silence.
"This is our Exodus.Not a fleeing… but a carrying.We do not run from the past.We carry its ash… into fire."
Everett's breath caught—not from awe, but from stillness.Stillness so deep it felt like the void itself had paused to record Guruji's words in an eternal ledger.
Then Gloria and Everett turned to each other, smiling with shared resolve.
"That's it," Gloria whispered.
Everett nodded.
"Apoche Exodus."
"For those who still carry the fire."