Season 1. Chapter 93: Mission
Chapter: The Forgotten Corners
The city's underbelly didn't exist on maps.
You had to feel it.
It lived in the alleyways between overdeveloped residential towers, where the sun barely reached through the metal grates above. Where runoff steam vented endlessly from broken pipes and every wall was tattooed in graffiti prayers no one answered. You didn't find these places unless you were looking for ghosts. Unless you were one yourself.
And Oliver Woods was exactly that kind of ghost.
He walked with silent steps across the cracked sidewalks of Sector Block 6C—hood up, mask over his face, and a calm purpose in his stride. Behind him walked Fern, just as soundless, her pale cloak marked with druid runes that flickered softly with ambient Vita energy. Though the city repelled the natural world, her presence refused to disappear. Moss had started growing on broken railings just from where she brushed her fingers.
They had a task:
Find the Forgotten.
Recruit the First Travelers.
These weren't volunteers.
They were the discarded.
The invisible.
---
They began at dawn.
The Lux Star hadn't yet risen above the towers, but the sky was turning gray.
They passed beneath a flickering sign that once belonged to an arcade. A neon phoenix blinked in and out of existence. The place had long since shut down—now a shelter made of blankets, bent shopping carts, and concrete warmth. Fern quietly extended her hand, brushing one of the rusted support beams.
"There are five people under this building," she whispered. "Three of them children."
Oliver nodded. "Any signs of magic?"
Fern's eyes shimmered faintly green. "One. Faint. Null field—likely a defensive instinct."
They didn't approach directly. Not yet.
Oliver placed a small Traveler glyph card—a foldable sigil imbued with a minor warmth spell and locator rune—just under the broken front panel. He didn't say a word. Fern added a druid-sealed sachet: dried herb mix, symbol of protection. It would smell like forest when they found it. A reminder that somewhere out there, nature still remembered them.
Then they moved on.
---
Block 6C-3: The Drop Hub
Beneath a half-collapsed bridge where water dripped eternally from a burst overhead pipe, they found the first congregation of Null-Zoners—homeless teens who wore faded spellbands around their wrists to block off forced mana readings from police drones. It was an anti-magic tactic used only by those who'd been falsely accused one too many times.
Oliver stood quietly behind a stack of crates and observed them.
A boy no older than fifteen sat on a bucket, sharpening a broken blade with a shattered phone screen.
A girl nearby was tattooing herself with runic chalk, drawing defensive wards with trembling fingers.
None of them noticed Oliver.
Until Fern stepped on a loose bottle.
Clink.
The boy with the blade froze.
"Who's there?" he called out, standing immediately, eyes sharp with survival instinct.
Oliver stepped forward, slowly. No aggression. No sudden movement.
"We're not police," he said.
The boy narrowed his eyes. "Everyone says that."
"We're not recruiters. Not guild reps. Not even from this city."
Fern added gently, "We're here to give you a path. One you choose."
The girl stopped her tattooing, looking at Fern's cloak. "Druid?"
Fern nodded. "Wildborn. Untamed."
The boy raised his blade slightly. "Why would a druid and a masked stranger come here?"
Oliver didn't answer directly. Instead, he pulled out his Systematic Guide, opened the interface, and displayed a flickering map—highlighting the new Traveler Zone developing outside the cities.
"No contracts. No ranks. No rituals. Just freedom. And a promise: if you come with us, you're no longer unwanted."
They didn't say yes. Not yet. But the girl nodded slowly.
"Leave us the map," she said.
Oliver dropped a glyph card and walked away.
---
Block 6C-7: The Glass Hollow
This one was harder. An entire abandoned station with reflective shards scattered across the floor, catching light from overhead spells. Known as a "ghost sink," it drew in broken tech and broken people.
They found only one—a man, late teens or early twenties, cradling a melted projector and whispering to it like a child. His mind had been fragmented from overexposure to arcane broadcast loops.
Fern knelt beside him.
"Do you want silence?" she whispered.
The man didn't respond, but a single tear rolled down his cheek.
Fern placed a druid charm around his neck—a braided vine loop with a white leaf.
"I'll grow a quiet place for you," she promised. "If you come find us."
He never looked up. But his hands clutched the charm.
Oliver said nothing. But he left a second glyph.
Sometimes silence said more.
---
By dusk, they had walked sixteen blocks.
Fern had marked thirty-two people with druidic memory threads.
Oliver had dropped eighteen glyph cards and had logged each location on his Guide.
They had been chased off three times, ignored ten, and stared at like ghosts in every sector.
But they kept walking.
This wasn't recruitment.
It was planting seeds.
---
As they returned toward the ice cream truck, city lights beginning to flicker on in fake cheer, Fern spoke softly beside Oliver.
"You knew they wouldn't come right away."
Oliver nodded. "They never do."
Fern looked ahead. "But they'll remember the leaf. The warmth."
Oliver replied, voice low, "They'll come when the city forgets them one too many times."
She didn't argue.
Because she knew it was true.
And when they did come…
There would finally be a place for them.
A Traveler's place.
------
Chapter: Signals Through the Static
The sky above the city was turning bruised purple and burnt gold as the Lux Star dipped low beyond the glass tower skyline. But in the heart of the dwarven mist village—tucked behind nature-grown walls, glowing softly with druidic moss lights and repurposed scrap tech—the real storm was just beginning.
Inside a refurbished stone dome retrofitted with cables, crystal panels, and five different signal amplifiers made from enchanted copper and scavenged drone parts… The Traveler Network Launch Room buzzed to life.
And at its helm—stood none other than Riven Blackstone, arms crossed, golden eyes sharp, his yellow wooly hat slightly lopsided as usual.
"This…" Riven announced, sweeping his arms dramatically, "is where we stop whispering and start roaring."
Behind him, Goldie lay on a hammock strung between two old support beams, lazily licking a lollipop, tail swaying.
"Roaring like… an ice cream truck in a thunderstorm?" she offered with a smirk.
Garrick Ironhart, hunched over a mess of wires and glowing mana-batteries, rolled his eyes. "Roaring like a frying pan full of chaos and overpromise. This thing's gonna blow."
"It's not gonna blow," Riven replied confidently. "It's going to upload. Stream. Echo. Go viral. Make history."
He turned back to the terminal: a glowing projector fused with old-school keyboard tiles, druidic glyphs acting as buffering filters. The screen blinked: TRAVELER UPLINK READY.
Goldie yawned. "What are we even posting first?"
Riven leaned over the keyboard, eyes gleaming.
"Everything."
---
Stage One: The Drop
Goldie swung upright from her hammock and activated the livestream rune circle with a flick of her finger.
A holographic camera activated with a soft ping. Suddenly, Riven's face filled the local net channels—a blur of yellow hat, black coat, and a grin that could either inspire a revolution or a riot.
"Yo! You're tuning in to the unofficial, unregulated, underground broadcast of the new movement coming straight out of the cracks in society. We're the Travelers. And we're not selling dreams—we're building exits."
He snapped his fingers, and the screen behind him flickered: scenes of the surveillance forest, the ice cream truck, Oliver walking through the city with Fern, a slow montage of moss overtaking stone.
"No contracts. No restrictions. No titles unless you earn them. This isn't a guild. This isn't some scam academy. This is for those of you who fell through the cracks. Got kicked out of society. Forgotten by everyone."
Garrick's deep voice interjected off-screen: "And yes. We have food."
Cut to: Nico spinning sugar and accidentally lighting marshmallows on fire. Laughter. The camera swung wildly.
Back to Riven.
"We're building something real. We've got druids, engineers, a talking mop, and one of the best information networks in the city shadows thanks to Goldie here—"
Goldie waved from the background, grinning. "Hi, strangers. I know your search history."
"—and we're looking for you. Unemployed? Weird magic? Banned from your school because you caused a lightstorm accident? No problem. Come to the edge. Find the moss-grown gate. Or just follow the glyph."
He held up a Traveler glyph card, glowing softly.
"Drop locations will be announced nightly. We'll be watching."
And with that—
Goldie hit POST.
---
Stage Two: The Viral Surge
Goldie didn't just post one video.
She posted dozens.
#TravelerCall went out on ten channels: encrypted chats, mage-run streamboards, anonymous meme dumps, even old-school text scroll forums.
She created fake rumors about "a hidden city growing in the woods," "an anti-guild movement," and even "a fox-boy making magical desserts that give temporary XP boosts."
Garrick uploaded blueprints for the modded water filtration unit they'd made with Goldie and Basil, marked: "Open-source, no patent. Build one, survive."
Riven posted an entire video log of rejected guild applicants—real people, real footage, real stories—overlaid with music and the Traveler logo pulsing between frames.
"Let them see what failure actually looks like," Riven muttered. "Then show them we turned it into fire."
---
Stage Three: The Response
By the time night truly fell over the city, their signal had reached every major district's undernet.
Goldie read the ping-feed out loud as they sat gathered around an enchanted stone table lit by floating moss orbs:
> "Six reposts in South Hill block."
"Someone tagged #TravelerCall on a school building."
"Request for glyph card drops—West Quarter wants four."
"Anonymous account said: 'If you're real, come to 5th Tunnel tomorrow.'"
Riven's eyes gleamed.
"That's the thing about systems," he said softly. "They get so good at filtering content, they forget to listen to the static."
He leaned back in his chair, cracked his knuckles, and smiled.
"We are the static now."
---
Somewhere, far away in a forgotten room, a teenager without a name watched the feed on a cracked screen.
They leaned closer.
Listened.
Saw the glyph.
And whispered one word:
"…Travelers."
The campaign was no longer just boots on the ground.
Now, it was a storm in the wires.