by Andrew Rowe
I glanced left and right. I couldn’t see any clear signs of human traffic in either direction, nor could I hear the sounds of water, so I picked a direction at random.
Left it is.
Before I wandered off, I set up a small rock formation to mark the spot in case I ended up wandering back there. It was easy to get lost in the middle of a forest, especially the particularly misty kind.
After that, I headed left.
The path was dirt and grass, almost completely straight, surrounded on both sides by forests. It was just broad enough for two people to walk abreast comfortably. It felt cultivated. Deliberate.
That wasn’t worrying in itself, though — manmade paths often were deliberately cultivated. Maybe this had been a common path to a town at one point, and someone had cleared out the trees and foliage on this path a year or two ago.
No, the worrying part was that it felt too similar. After walking for just a few minutes, I felt a bit dizzy, and I had the disconcerting sensation that I’d seen each and every tree in the path before.
“Trespasser, turn back. Before it is too late.”
The voice sounded like it was coming from all around me, but I couldn’t see a source. I pointed at myself. “Me? I mean, I assume you mean me, but if there are invisible people around, maybe you could clarify?”
I glanced around again. No source, no reply. I’d dealt with invisible adversaries before, and usually I could catch a hint of movement from the sound of footfalls. Maybe even a blur of motion, if the caster was less experienced. I didn’t catch any of that, though.
I kept walking.
My earlier assessment was accurate. A few minutes after that, I walked right back into the glade where I’d started, coming into it from the opposite side. I wasn’t imagining it; I found the cluster of stones I’d set as a marker.
That seemed...odd, though. The path was almost perfectly straight. I’d placed the bed of rocks because it was easy to get lost in most forests, where there weren’t coherent trails, or where there were lots of branches in the pathways that did exist.
I hadn’t taken any branches from the path. I’d seen a few of them, but I’d gone completely straight.
I ducked down, inspected the group of rocks to make certain they were the same ones, and headed off again.
“Turn back.”
The same voice. It didn’t alarm me quite as much this time, but it still grated on my nerves. Now it seemed like I was being followed, or maybe observed from a distance. I’d seen some spells that could be used to watch people from afar and send sound to a remote area. Maybe that was what was happening?
“Do you mean ‘turn back’ as in ‘leave this place, pitiful mortal’? Or is it more of a ‘turn back, you’re going the wrong direction, and make a left at the fork’? If you’re just being helpful, some clarity would be appreciated.” Again, I looked and listened for movement, but I found nothing.
I resumed walking.
Took me about the same amount of time to end up right back where I started.
If there’s anything worse than a mysterious misty forest, it’s a magical mysterious misty forest.
I tried walking the opposite direction. Same result. Pushing through the forest in one of the other two directions was tougher, so it took me a little longer to appear back in my starting location.
The same voice spoke to me about mid-way. The message was marginally different this time, at least. “This is a sacred place. You are not welcome here.”
It had been pretty obvious the voice wasn’t just trying to give me directions, of course, but the fact that this was a sacred location? That was new and interesting.
I tried replying each time, of course. Not just to be polite. I was trying to get a reaction, just in case anyone was physically present. I was leaning toward the explanation that whoever was watching me was in a remote location, and since they didn’t appear to be responding directly to what I said, I wasn’t sure if they could even hear me.
I tried going part way down each path, then taking one of the branches. That got me a little bit of new scenery, but I still ended up in the same grove somehow. After four attempts at trying branches of the path, I knew the brute force approach of just trying every trail was going to take too long.
I kept getting one message with each trip.
“Turn back.”
“This place is deadly to outsiders.”
“There is no treasure here, only death.”
“The Whispering Woods are not for your kind.”
I finally knew the name for the area after that one. And I had to admit, it was pretty apt. I might have gone for “Nameless Voice that Growls Angrily at Intruders Woods”, since it wasn’t really whispering, but I had to admit that the original name was a lot easier to remember.
I tried tying a shirt over my eyes and walking down the path blind. That was slow going. When I finally took off the makeshift blindfold, I was in an unfamiliar location...but after I walked a bit further, I still ended up back in the grove.
I tried it a second time, keeping the blindfold on longer, but it didn’t help. By this point, I was starting to recognize all the surrounding areas as well — the area I was looping through was maybe half a kilometer in each direction, and I was routinely running into landmarks, including my own tracks.
With a frustrated groan, I took off my backpack and sat down to think.
What’s causing me to loop back around? Is there a mental effect that’s causing me to think I’m going straight, even when I’m not? Perhaps something occurs a little ways into the woods, turning me around?
Maybe there’s something happening where I’m losing some of my memories and wandering back?
Or maybe I’m not actually going in a circle and there are several areas that look virtually identical?
No, that last one is too much effort. It’s probably something simpler, like the mind effect or memory loss. Could be a property of the mist.
Okay, I can work with this. The area isn’t that big. I can figure out if it’s time of exposure to the mist that gets me to turn around, or if there are certain locations that are affecting me, or if there’s another cause entirely.
The voice kept “whispering” at me each time I walked through the area, but with no indication that it was hearing my replies. That was a shame, because some of my remarks were pretty amusing, and it was a shame that my foreboding observer wasn’t getting to enjoy them.
“Is it your job to just watch people and...be creepy at them? Or is this more of a hobby? Because if it’s a job, I could probably find you a better option. Not to be rude, but you clearly have a talent for growling at strangers, and I can think of some people who could use that.”
I consoled myself with the fact that this whole experience was probably even more repetitive for them than it was for me.
I opened up my pack, found parchment and a quill, and started working on a map. I counted paces in each direction. It took me an almost identical number of paces to get back to the glade regardless of whether or not I went left or right, and it felt like the same amount of time.
That made it likely that the glade was physically at the center of whatever effect I was in, and that the effect had something to do with my location, not the amount of time that was passing.
Once I’d done that, I started dragging a stick behind me to make a line in the dirt. If I’d planned better, I could have just paid attention to my boot trails, but I’d walked over the area so many times now that it wouldn’t work for this particular test.
I glanced behind me periodically, watching the line I was making.
I’d walked just about half way through the total distance of the loop when I realized that the line behind me was gone, with the exception of the last few feet I’d just drawn.
I turned around, walking back the way I’d came...and there was the longer line again, leading a long way down the trail in front of me.
I felt a renewed wave of nausea hit me and paus
ed to take a drink.
That was when I noticed a small cluster of rocks that I hadn’t placed.
Foregoing the drink, I walked over to the rocks and knelt down to inspect them.
I found runes carved into the ones in the center.
There you are.
I didn’t know exactly what the rune did. Wasn’t my area of expertise, and honestly, I don’t even remember what it looked like.
I do remember the cathartic feeling when I smashed the rock, though. Mm. Breaking things.
There was a flash of light when I shattered the stone, then I was elsewhere.
My stomach briefly protested in response to the teleportation effect, but fortunately, there was nothing immediately dangerous to assault me during the recovery.
I took in my surroundings. Same forest, or one designed to look suspiciously similar. Now I was on the border of a hillside, though, or maybe a mountainside. I couldn’t determine the scale due to the mist.
Either way, the stone outcropping near me had a pretty conspicuous looking cave with an obviously humanoid sized entrance.
I almost avoided it out of irritation. I didn’t like playing so directly into someone else’s hands, but I had a job to do. I’d been told that the goddess I was looking for had a thing for presenting challenges, but I wasn’t expecting anything quite this obvious... or something quite so soon after my arrival.
I’d been hoping to end up in a nice town with my friends, with some time to plan and gather information.
Hope can be a source of strength, but when it fails to deliver what I want, I’ve found a good degree of stubbornness to be an appropriate substitute.
So, I walked into the cave.
The mist was even thicker inside. I could only see a few feet in front of me, and even that was hazy.
I could feel the moisture in the air, and that moisture made it easier to pick up the scents around me. Moss, feathers, a hint of death.
My hand settled on the sword on my left hip out of instinct, but I didn’t draw it. There was no need to make things worse.
I was tempted to conjure a bit of flame to disperse the mist around me and provide some much-needed light, but the cost of maintaining it for a trek of indeterminate length was more of a risk than I was willing to take.
Instead, I walked back out of the cave for a minute or so, found a branch of about an arm’s length, broke off the little twigs protruding from the sides, and tried to light it with the flint and steel from my pack.
After about a minute of trying to get a spark to catch on the wood, I gave up and just ignited the top of the branch with sorcery. A chill ran down my spine as I felt the spell’s cost, but it wasn’t much of a burden. A mere flicker of fire wouldn’t drain my strength as much as maintaining a ball of flame would have.
The branch blazed brightly as I strode into the depths of darkness.
Oh, come on. I’m not being that dramatic. A little bit of narrative flavor never hurt anyone. You could use a little more of it when you tell us the next part of your story, Corin.
Anyway, cave. Right.
With the makeshift torch, I could see a little bit further — just far enough to notice the trail of bones. I could also see that the cave went deep into the mountainside, expanding beyond the human-sized entrance into a vast cavern with an open area ahead and what looked like a couple different possible paths.
I ducked under a stalactite, reminded myself not to stand straight up, and knelt next to the first skull I could find.
Deer, I think. Looks about adult sized.
I inspected some of the other large bones nearby, frowning as I took in the size of the gouges on the ribs. They’d been pushed inward, and I could see gouges on several of them where something sharp had cut into the bone.
Crushed by claws, and big ones. Large enough to wrap around the entire torso of the deer, I think.
Either that, or five people with clubs and axes.
Going to go with claws.
I stood up, hit my head, and died.
Kidding, kidding. I didn’t die until much later.
Didn’t even hit my head. I’d been climbing through enough caves that I knew to exercise due caution. I remained in a crouch until the cave widened, and the ceiling was high enough to stand back up without bashing my head.
It was fortunate that I was close to the ground for a while, because that made it easier to notice the spine crawlers.
What are spine crawlers, you ask? Why, they’re like centipedes, only three feet long, about eight inches thick, and, as I swiftly learned, swift to anger.
Their gray skin blended near perfectly with the stone floor — it was the glint from the light reflecting on their carapaces that gave them away.
By that point, it was almost too late. I was only inches from a nest, and one was slithering toward my feet.
I backpedaled because, well, no one wants to get eaten by giant poisonous worms. That took me into the other monster nest.
Vines wrapped around my legs as the winged beasts descended from the ceiling. They looked like bats, but with wings that were more birdlike, if bird feathers were metallic and razor-edged.
Also, given how rapidly the vines were moving from the cave floor to encircle me, one or both of the monster types could use nature sorcery.
Yeah, not a fun cave.
I tugged on the vines. Animated or not, they were vines, and not particularly strong. I snapped one just in time to see one of the razor bats — no idea if that’s what they’re typically called, just going to go with it — flapping its wings in my direction.
Which, predictably, sent a wave of razor-sharp feathers in my direction.
The feathers weren’t actually metal, so I couldn’t turn them aside with metal sorcery. I resisted the instinct to draw my blade and hurled myself out of the way, narrowly avoiding the quills.
The few lingering vines wrapped around me weren’t sufficient to hold me in place, but the ones I snapped were quickly replaced by more, and now I was on the ground with razor bats above me and a spine crawler, well, crawling closer.
I flared my aura, surrounding my body in a silvery blur. Vines disintegrated. Inches of stone beneath me vanished, not even dust left in my aura’s wake.
I rolled in the opposite direction of where the vines had been, my right hand burning from the power I’d just used. I didn’t even have time to regret it before I was pushing myself to the side, failing to avoid another barrage of feathers entirely. A quill glanced along my back, drawing a trail of blood.
I rolled, grabbing the quill with two fingers and hurling it right back at the bat.
It missed. I’m a good shot, but it was a feather, not a throwing knife.
I threw the knife from my belt next. I hit the bat that time, and it fell.
The spine crawlers were on top of it in seconds, biting with venom-laced fangs. I scurried backward, retrieving my fallen torch, and watched as another spine crawler dislodged its jaw and sprayed acid on the still-wriggling razor bat.
A good portion of the bat melted away before it ceased struggling entirely.
A smaller portion of my knife melted along with it.
And I liked that knife.
Rather than extract revenge for the vicious daggercide that had just been committed, however, I took the more cautious course of pushing myself to my feet and inching away from the scene. The spine crawlers didn’t seem to notice me at all now that they had easier prey, but I didn’t want to risk aggravating them further with any sudden movements.
Burning through those vines with my aura had been...unwise. Overusing it was dangerous in a different way from conjuring too much fire. It wouldn’t harm me.
Not physically, at least.
Practicing any type of sorcery generates essence — what you’d call mana where you’re from — of that type in the body. That essence changes you; subtly with some types of mana, more overtly with others.
I could use three fairly common types of sorcery: flame, s
tone, and metal. I wasn’t really sure what the first one did to my body, but stone and metal essence both worked to reinforce skin, muscles, and bone. I’d practiced metal sorcery daily since childhood, and that had made my body both stronger and more resilient than any ordinary human.
I’d disintegrated the vines using another, lesser known type of sorcery. I’d practiced it unknowingly for years by using the sword sheathed at my side, and during that process, it had bled into my essence.
Now I was generating some of that type of essence myself all the time, even without the sword.
That wasn’t a good thing.
The aura that was around me at all times?
It breaks things.
Anything I’m in contact with for long enough wears down. Food, clothes, armor, weapons - it all breaks. I’m not talking about just accelerating the normal passage of time, either. That’d be ruin sorcery, which is related, but less dangerous.
My aura is gradually cutting through everything around me — erasing pieces of everything it touches. This is not convenient.
For example, if I wear items that generate protective sorcery, like a shield sigil?
My aura breaks the barrier down in minutes, rendering the item worthless. Even the magical object itself will gradually break down, unless the item is shielded well enough to prevent the aura from cutting through it. Very few defensive spells are that resilient.
I had precisely three things on me that were powerful enough to survive long-term exposure to my aura without harm. My sword, the scabbard designed to hold it, and a weird mask that I really shouldn’t have held onto.
My aura was already too strong for me to suppress it entirely at any given time; it was cutting away at my backpack, my boots, everything around me, just very slowly. I probably had about a week to get to a town before my equipment fell apart.
Any time I used that type of sorcery, I’d make the problem worse. Permanently, unless I also improved my degree of control over the aura, and that was easier said than done. Drawing the sword involved the same type of risk; a portion of that destructive magic would leak into me any time it wasn’t sheathed.
If I didn’t find a solution, I’d eventually get to the point where I couldn’t touch non-magical objects at all.
