Morning came sooner than expected, the night felt short. Harley's HP had recovered to 85/100 overnight, the game's rest mechanics being one of its more generous features. He stretched, felt his ribs where the guard's spear shaft had connected yesterday, and noted that it had dulled from a complaint to a comment.
Cain received them in the same room, already seated, the clay pitcher replaced with a fresh one.
When he was sure they were wide awake, he explained the forest.
Ahmadanam. Named, Harley's translation overlay informed him, from an old regional word meaning 'the place that swallows.' It ran north from the village, a dense stretch that broke only at the elevated ridge four miles in, where the terrain turned to rock and the tree cover thinned. The beast, or whatever the beast was, had been seen by exactly one person who had come back from the forest in the last two seasons, a young scout who had made it to the edge of Ahmadanam, saw the mist rising through the trees, and turned back. He had not been wrong to turn back. He had also not slept correctly since.
Cain marked the forest on their map.
MAP UPDATED
Ahmadanam Forest — WARNING: Confirmed hostile territory
Entry point marked. Navigate north from Crestmere gate.
Holt was present and silent in the corner, which was somehow worse than Holt being present and vocal. He watched them receive Cain's briefing.
Harley and Namir left him to his arithmetic.
The walk north from the village gate took twenty minutes; the tree line visible the whole way, sitting at the horizon of the cleared land like a wall that had decided to have a personality. Up close, Ahmadanam was even less inviting than the forest they had arrived in the day before. The trees were older here, the canopy denser, the light barely reached the ground.
Namir stopped at the edge.
"Masks."
Harley blinked, "What?"
"I heard one of the NPCs near the gate mention it. Something about the mist in the deeper sections," He pulled a cloth from his pack, rough-woven, treated with something that smelled faintly medicinal. He had, apparently, procured this at some point during yesterday's side quest circuit without mentioning it, "The village chief didn't say anything about it."
"He didn't know?"
"He doesn't go into the forest." Namir tied the mask around his face; it covered the lower half, nose to chin. He handed Harley the other one, "Overheard. Two of the women near the east gate. One of them said her cousin went in three months ago and came back wrong; walking in circles, couldn't remember his own name. Made a full recovery in two weeks but that week of circling was apparently something."
Harley tied the mask on. It smelled like someone had soaked it in something herbal and then let it dry somewhere not particularly ventilated. This was fine, this was great, "The chief really should have led with that."
"He probably doesn't know what causes it. Locals rarely understand the mechanics of their own lore conditions."
"That's terrifying from a real-world perspective."
"Welcome to floor one."
They went in.
The mist was visible further in, rising from the ground in slow curls, gathering in the low spaces between roots. Not dense enough to obscure just present enough to notice. Harley's Observation passive pinged twice in the first hundred meters, once for a root cluster hidden under leaf fall, once for something it designated simply as 'environmental hazard: atmospheric.'
The thanked the system for that.
They moved carefully. Namir set the pace, his spear was in his hand. Harley had his sword out, not because anything was immediately threatening them but because putting it away felt like the kind of optimism that forests like this had opinions about.
The creatures found them fifteen minutes in. Not all at once though, that would have been almost considerate.
It was a thing that moved low to the ground with too many limbs and a sound like static, which Harley identified as hostile approximately one second before it lunged. His sword came up by instinct rather than training and the blade made contact in a way that was not elegant but was effective.
⚔ COMBAT INITIATED
Harley Watson vs. Forest Wraith ×1
It went badly for the Wraith. It went adequately for Harley, who took 8 HP in the exchange and gained 40 EXP when the creature dissolved into a shimmer of particles that the game recycled back into the environment. He stared at the spot where it had been.
"Those weren't in the original game either," Namir echoed, from behind him, where he had just finished handling his own encounter with an identical efficiency that Harley chose not to compare himself to.
"Modified lore?"
"Modified lore." he agreed.
Two more wraiths came in the next ten minutes, then a cluster of four simultaneously, which was the game demonstrating that it had a sense of pacing and that sense was punishing. The cluster fight was loud and close and resulted in Harley's bracers doing meaningful work for the first time and Namir's Speed Burst leaving three motion trails in quick succession as he cleared the flanks. They both came out of it with HP in the sixties and a shared experience point notification that felt earned like they way they earned their bruises.
+180 EXPHP: 64/100 | MP: 40/40
Harley was breathing harder than he would have liked. The mist was thicker here, it rose to knee height in the low areas and gathered in pools where the root structures created natural basins. His mask was doing its job though, he could smell the medicinal treatment over the damp earth smell of the forest and nothing felt wrong in his head. So they pushed deeper.
The next creature came from above.
Talk about dramatic entry. It dropped from the canopy and was large enough that Harley's entire body registered it before his brain did, landing between them with enough force to scatter leaf debris in all directions. It was roughly the size of a large dog with eyes that reflected the filtered light in too many directions. His Observation passive flagged it as 'Unknown Creature Type' .
It moved for Namir first but he evaded it with ease. Looking at each other, they knew this one would be different.
Harley circled left while Namir drew it right and the creature, to its credit, tracked both of them simultaneously. Harley took a glancing hit that dropped his HP to 51 and ate through the defensive math of his leather vest. Namir took a direct impact that sent him back three feet into a root cluster, he landed hard, came up faster than should have been physically possible, and put his spear through the creature's midsection before it could press the advantage.
The EXP was good. The HP situation was not.
Harley reached for his salve but Namir waved him off from reaching for his own; the hit had been harder but his recovery was faster. Harley was beginning to understand Namir's stats better.
"We should move," Namir said, pulling his spear free from the creature's lifeless carcass that the game had not yet absorbed, "Further in before we stop."
Harley nodded, adjusting his mask. it had shifted during the fight, the cord loosening slightly at his right temple. He pressed it back against his face before they proceeded.
As they journeyed though, the mist thickened even more.
Harley didn't register the exact moment it crossed from knee-height to waist-height, he was too occupied with watching the canopy and the ground simultaneously. The air had changed again, this time it had a sweet undertone. It was beginning to feel like something in the forest was producing it on purpose.
He was about to mention this when Namir held up a fist, halting harley instantly.
His head was tilted, his eyes were moving across the mist-level in the middle distance with the focus of someone hearing something at the edge of audibility.
Then Harley heard it too.
And in the blink of an eye, his mask cord snapped.
The right side of it fell from his face in the same moment that Namir reached for his own; and whether it was the cord or the distraction or simply the forest deciding the moment had arrived, neither of them was fast enough. They had taken a good whiff of it before they could even hold their breath.
Their HP didn't drop. Their MP didn't drop. Their vision were still clear.
But their legs were not cooperating.
Namir was three feet away and descending toward the ground with the expression of a man who has identified an error in his plan but no longer has the motor control to address it, "Har—" but it was too late, he had met with the forest floor too.
The mist settled around them both like it had been waiting for precisely this outcome.
The game made no comment.
⚠ STATUS EFFECT APPLIEDCrimson Mist — [Unconscious]Duration: Unknown
The last thing Harley thought, before his mind blanked, was that he was definitely losing his job.