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The fire crackled low in the quiet night, casting dancing shadows on the walls of the small room where the group had gathered. The celebration had wound down, and the villagers had retreated to their homes, but Bob, Freya, Apollo, and Felicia remained awake. The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken thoughts.
Bob finally broke it, his voice low. "We need to talk about what comes next."
Freya leaned back against the wall, her axe resting beside her. "You mean where we go from here?"
"Exactly," Bob said, his gaze fixed on the blade across his lap. "That fight back there—it wasn't the end. We all felt it. The corruption wasn't entirely destroyed. We stopped one piece, but there's something bigger behind all this."
Felicia crossed her arms, her brow furrowed. "We barely made it out of the last battle alive, Bob. If there's something worse out there, we can't just charge in unprepared."
