The Fogspire doesn't mind visitors. It minds leaving.

Go in with greed, come out with roots.

– Common Saying Among Gravepickers and Lost Sons of Bharncair

The morning had only barely begun to stir when Gael, Maeve, and Cara finally made it to the entrance of the Fogspire Forest. Their journey through Blightmarch had been an exhausting one—because frankly, it'd been a while since Gael came here, and he'd all but forgotten how to navigate the broken alleys and endlessly winding paths—but they were here now, so all was good and well.

He squinted at the rusted iron gate before them, barely able to make out an outline through the mist that clung to everything. The gargantuan forest ahead looked more like a curse than a natural feature. The twisted, hundred-meter-tall trees and the heavy fog that oozed out from between the gnarled trunks made it look more imposing than it actually was, but… well, Gael wasn't exactly looking straight at the forest yet.

Fergal and his five goons, who'd followed them all the way here, were making little noise.

"What are you idiots following us for?" he muttered under his breath. "Seriously. Don't you have anything better to do?"

Fergal caught his gaze with a raised brow, shrugging casually. "I told you. This part of Blightmarch has been placed under my division's control, and I haven't actually been to the forest before. It's part of my duty to scout it out and see if I have to do anything about it."

"If you say so."

While Gael scoffed and adjusted his mask, Fergal waved to his five goons. "My assistants will be following us as well. Introduce yourselves, boys."

The first man stepped forward, hand on his chest. "Gloam," he said, his voice sharp and clipped. The blindfold wrapped around his patchwork leather mask told its own story; this was a face that didn't need to see to understand danger.

Next, a masked woman with black-furred earmuffs spoke next, her voice off-pitch like it was meant to echo. "Toneless."

The third man—the fat, round like a melon man—held up a piece of paper to his chest, and on it wrote a single word: 'Tongueless'.

Next was a small man, who Gael could easily mistake for a child, with a dent in the middle of his mask that made it look as though he had no nose. "Aether," he murmured quietly.

And finally, the massive brute wrapped from head to toe in bloodstained bandages, stepped forward. "Flay," he grunted. His voice was much deeper than the rest of them, and Fergal nodded absentmindedly behind all of them as if he were a proud parent listening to his kids making friends in the local park.

Gael really couldn't give less of a damn, though he wasn't so inattentive to not notice the fact that they'd all had one of their five principal senses removed from them. Torture, perhaps. He wouldn't put it past Lorcawn to ensure loyalty or dole out punishment that way.

"Why the strange names?" Maeve asked, tilting her head at the five of them. Gloam lifted his head and was about to reply when Gael adjusted the satchel slung over his shoulder, moving ahead of everyone else.

"Who cares?" he grumbled, flicking a scowl back at the goons as he passed through the rusted gate. "Just don't get in our way."

With that, the others started trailing behind him, keen to not get thrown off immediately.

Maeve hesitated behind him, looking up at the towering trees and the thick, wet fog that hung in the air. "And what's going on here?" she asked. "Why is there a forest in the middle of the city?"

Gael didn't turn back to look at her. "The Fogspire Forest is an ancient and cursed forest that stretches across the heart of Blightmarch. It's been here for centuries, long before the southern ward was even built." He stepped forward, boots crunching softly on the wet earth. "It's also home to the 'Mournspire Pines'. They ain't like any trees you've ever seen. Supposedly, they've all got towering, twisted trunks, black bark, and branches like bones. Some folks even say those trees are sentient, so the natives living here worship them like gods."

"Natives?"

"An indigenous tribe called the 'Petalborn'. They take care of the Mournspire Pines, and in return, the pines continue using their 'mystical ability' to convert all poisons and sicknesses in the air into cold mist. This means, while the forest is terribly misty all the time, it's not actually dangerous to breathe in the mist." To make a point, he waved at her and Cara and the Repossessors to take off their masks. "The Vile can't penetrate the forest. Pull off the straps and see for yourself."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Fergal and Cara didn't hesitate, pulling down their masks and immediately taking a deep whiff of the fresh, clear air. Maeve hesitated for a moment before doing the same, and to her obvious surprise, the air didn't choke her. It wasn't the polluted air of Bharncair or the stench of rot in the lower streets. Instead, it was cold and damp. Wet and frosty. The mist certainly clung to their skin, but there was nothing poisonous about it.

"See?" Gael said, as though reading Maeve's mind. "Not toxic."

Their boots squelched as they moved past the thickets, the trail barely beaten by anyone who wasn't a fool or desperate enough to walk into the fog-shrouded maw of the Fogspire Forest. The towering trees loomed like specters in the mist, their gnarled, twisted branches clawing at the sky, blocking out what little sunlight managed to seep through the fog. The city had already disappeared behind them, swallowed by the mist. The sound of the bustling streets, the fights and the shouting, the clinking of coins in the markets—all that was left was the eerie silence of the forest, broken only by the soft rustle of leaves in the wind.

"You know, seven decades ago, people in the southern ward thought about demolishing this entire forest to make more room for fancy buildings," he said casually. "It was said that a whole bunch of slack-eyed engineers and scholars all came together to mount a formal expedition into the forest. They thought they could just march in here, chop down a few trees, steal whatever they could, and get out with the official go-ahead to tear down the place… anyone wanna guess what happened to them?"

"Death," Cara, Fergal, and his goons said at the same time.

"Not death?" Maeve offered, still too naive.

"Death." Gael chuckled, shaking his head in dismay. "The forest slaughtered them. The natives were even worse. Only one scholar made it out alive, all mad and delirious, babbling about some sort of grand treasure hidden deep in the heart of the forest. He said whoever got their hands on it would have power and riches beyond their imagination, so seven decades ago, the Fogspire Forest was unofficially labelled the 'Labyrinth of Blightmarch': a dungeon for adventurers and explorers to test their mettle and intelligence, of which most of them were woefully lack of."

Maeve glanced at the misted woods around them, intrigued, but also wary. "Did anyone ever find the treasure?"

"Fuck no. There hasn't been a single soul who's even gotten close to the heart of the forest." His own eyes narrowed as he scanned the forest, the trees towering ominously, their roots clawing out of the earth. "The trees are alive here. Paths constantly shift and change depending on the time of day, and living vines block entry into the deeper parts of the forest. Lots of Myrmurs and Nightspawn lurk in here too. Obviously, the resources here are still worth some people's effort, but for the most part, the excitement has died down over the decades. The only guys that come here now are thrill-seekers, murderers hiding bodies, or—case in point—idiots like us looking for aero-resonating stones that can only be found here."

"I assume we're not going to bother looking for the treasure, then?"

"Nah. Treasure's for real idiots. We're just here for the stones and some rare herbs, so we'll get in, get out, and hopefully be back in the clinic by the end of the week. We spend any more time than that in this forest, and we'll be the main characters in Miss Laminosa's next horror chronicle."

Fergal's voice rumbled from behind. "This does feel like a super dangerous forest."

Before Gael could voice a reply, though, the ground shifted. Without another warning, a living root shot up from the earth, aiming straight for their heads. Fergal, quick as a whip, intercepted it with a brutal block, one of his spider arms catching the root with a sickening crack before it could shoot through Cara's jaw.

Gael blinked, shrugging nonchalantly as he flicked his coat back and readied himself for the next thing to come out of the shadows. "Eh. It's all just part of the fun."

Cara, unfazed as well, stepped forward and walked past Fergal, dodging the still-twitching root. "I sure am glad you boys are here to be our meatshields this time around," she said teasingly, grinning at Fergal as she did. "Everyone here needs to be looking out for the aero-resonating stones. Remember: they're loud, greenish-blue, and we think they grow on the trees. Gael's the only one who knows what herbs he needs to replenish our symbiote elixir supply, so let him look for the herbs. The rest of us will look for the stones—"

She was cut off by a shrill, desperate scream that split the air, distant but unmistakable.

It was the sound of terror.

Gael and Maeve whirled to their right at the exact same time as both of their visions flared red.

"... Already?" Maeve whispered.

Gael's lips twisted into a grin. "I'll be damned. We're gonna get some extra points this early on."

The others stood still with the two of them, waiting, eyes scanning the shadows.

Then, the distant screams started again.

Screams. Plural. Many sharp-pitched howls—human voices—panicked and desperate. The sounds tore through the mist, drawing closer, and they were heading straight for Gael and Maeve, charging through the fog like wild animals.

Gael narrowed his eyes, turning on his night vision. He could make out a few figures running at them from the front now. They were about half a dozen Bharnish adventurers and harvesters running for their lives, eyes wide, faces pale with fear as they slipped and stumbled through the forest.

And then, without a word, they ran right by Gael's group.

Not even a glance spared.

… Gael let them go. They weren't his problem, because something was chasing them, and that something was about to be his problem.

He squinted into the fog, trying to see through the thick veil of mist.

Then the first of them emerged, screaming as they charged forward.

There were at least forty of them, dwarf-sized like malformed halflings, and each of them was armed with a crude weapon: root spears, bone blades, and whatever else they could scavenge from the land.

Gael blinked.

If his vision weren't pure red right now, he'd have mistaken them for goblins or something less bioarcanic in nature.

"That's a fuck ton of Myrmurs."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.