(Participant in the Royal Road June 2024 Community Magazine Contest)

[THEIR FINAL STAND PITS THEM NOT JUST AGAINST MAN — BUT A BERSERK ALLY ABOUT TO COMMIT A FAR WORSE CRIME.]

The Tanglesooth Druids are on their last legs. Humanity's plague has washed over their neighbors and rivals, and the goblins are forced to defend their village — and its Fluxus that empowers them, the Dryad herself.

And then a champion of theirs, Aodh, goes rogue and breaks into the Blessed Tree. The Dryad's home.

With little choice, rising apprentice Emrys and his grandmother Birog are forced to confront Aodh and his bewildering act of treachery at such a critical time. His magic has grown warped and bizarre, aggravating all that it touches, and its foulness is a grave threat to them all. He must be stopped before the humans overrun their home. If whatever he's planning succeeds, after all—

There may be a reckoning no one will live to tell the tale about.