After a few minutes of waiting, Atticus finally reaches the booth and slides his card towards the booth manager, who accepts while looking up at the knight.

“First outing, huh?” He asks while inking his stamp. “You look like you can handle yourself, though. More so than these other schmucks.” He quickly slams the stamp on the left-most square on the first row, then grabs a quill, inks it, and writes the date and time under the same square. “Good luck.” The booth manager utters half-heartedly while handing the card back. It's hard to blame him. Considering the tediousness of his job and number of people who pass through the gate per day, he must have regurgitated the phrase thousands of times by now. Atticus recalls a similar attitude from Eileen, the girl who runs the registration counter in headquarters.

“Thank you.” The knight replies automatically while taking the card. “Before I leave, I have a few questions.”

“Shoot.” The booth manager replies immediately.

“Have you heard anything about plants in the misted area being safe to eat?”

“Sure.” The man answers with a nod. “A good amount of people who do manage to come back have mentioned it. But, of course, they're usually just talking about what's leftover from the farms around here. The further in you go, the denser the fog becomes, so if you venture far enough, you could reach a point where plants are effected. But that part is just my guess.”

“I see. My other question is: how far is the closest Legion checkpoint from here?”

“All of the Legion checkpoints are purposely placed about fifty miles from each other, so it's possible to go from one to the other in a single day, even on foot. Do you have a map of the area?”

The knight shakes his head. “No, I don't.”

“Here.” The man looks underneath the counter, and pulls out a rolled up sheet of paper. He holds it out to Atticus. “This is a map of the effected area. The red dots on it are locations of checkpoints.”

The black-clad knight takes it and unrolls it to examine the contents. There are indeed multiple red dots scattered among the southern half of the contaminated land that are about equal distance away from each other. And, just as Tarvus told him, there are no dots in the northern half, signifying that there really weren't any checkpoints past the half-way point.

Atticus rolls the paper back up. “Thank you. This will be helpful.”

“No problem. Take care of yourself out there.”

The knight gives one last grateful nod before turning his mare and trotting to the gate, which was ajar just enough for Mistwalkers to pass in and out. He crosses the threshold with little urgency. Once the gate is several paces behind him, he stops and examines the surrounding area and horizon ahead. There are multiple other Mistwalkers walking in various directions, scattering themselves. He senses no real danger right from the get-go, but he's technically still within the magic barrier's reach. Either way, he's officially begun his mission to reach the source of the mist, and silently proceeds forward.

Atticus and Annaliese are still in the middle of an open grassland with no immediate threats in sight, but he intends to take a straight line to Armasstadt, the presumed center of the mist. There's only four checkpoints from Zenith Gate to the half-way point, but his journey could potentially be slowed by the forests and villages on his way there; especially the latter, if populated by the ravenous undead. The knight unrolls his newly acquired map to take one more look at it. The first village, Newmanstead, is actually twenty miles directly north of where he is now. Not deterred by the likelihood of danger, he presses on.

Mere minutes later, the knight in black iron reaches the end of the barrier. He knows this not because it's a visible, transparent wall, but because he can see the mist itself collecting against an invisible point in the air in front of him, as if a divine line was separating stable civilization from an eerie, blight-stricken hell. He looks through the unseen threshold, peering far into the distance. The mist is thick enough to make visibility cease approximately four hundred feet from where one is standing. Truly, it was like gazing into a totally different world; a bleak, desolate world of grey. It was nothing the knight had ever experienced before, but he remained stone-faced and resolute. After a meditative pause, he and his horse step into the nigh-colorless realm.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Once totally inside the grasp of the fog, Atticus feels no immediate changes in the air aside from the aforementioned limited visibility. He can still safely inhale and exhale as any living creature normally would. The mist does not burn his lungs, nor sting his eyes, nor even strike his nostrils with any putrid odor. However, when he lifts his head upward, he notices that the midday sky is darker than it should be. The fog had risen enough to slightly obscure the sun's light. This could prove troublesome when judging the time of day; but even worse, it could also transform nighttime into endless, impenetrable darkness – a true abyss. Still, the knight stays calm and continues forward at the pace he's always been at.

No doubt, having the color mostly drained from one's surroundings is far from a boost for morale. The moderately dense fog has transformed an open ocean of lively, lush, green land into a hopeless limbo. The ambiance is undoubtedly eerie and unwelcoming, to the point where the everyday breeze seems like the chill-inducing sensation of a sinister force looming over any would-be hero who dares to step into this domain. The air only fills with the sound of Annaliese's hooves crushing the dirt beneath her. The utter abandonment of the area by every living creature that once dwelled here has left an incredibly uncomfortable silence. No deer or wild horses are grazing. No wolves are howling. No birds are singing. Not even a fly buzzes around the knight's head to prove an annoyance – something even he would partly welcome if it meant piercing this uneasy quiet. Now Atticus knows why so many Mistwalkers of weaker mental and emotional fortitude meet their demise only a few miles out; this oppressive environment would have most certainly broken their minds before they would even need to physically engage with an enemy.

After two hours of slow but alert riding like an armored automaton, the knight stops his mare in her tracks, for he's finally seen something of interest: a human-shaped figure in the distance. He examines it from where he is, but can't make out any details due to the distance, so he decides to approach cautiously. The mist slowly clears, and soon, at about a hundred feet away from him is an unknown person, of awkward, weak gait. Their strides are slow, as if their legs are seconds away from buckling underneath them. The unidentifiable individual turns towards Atticus, and begins to pick up speed, attempting to rush at him in aggression incited by his mere presence; however, they're still quite slow. They're heaving heavy, coarse breaths – practically growling in an animalistic manner.

Wasting no time, the knight decides to pull out his bow that was equipped to Annaliese's side, along with one iron-tipped arrow from the quiver next to it. The angry, nameless somebody lifts their right hand, revealing themself to be wielding a dagger, with the intent of swinging it. Atticus raises his bow, takes aim, and looses the arrow. It cuts through the air with breathtaking speed and pierces the unknown being's head with a brief cracking sound, and they drop to the ground immediately. The black-clad knight quickly dismounts his horse, grabs an extra arrow, and approaches the corpse, ready to shoot at it again at an instance's notice.

Once he's close enough to confirm his kill, he relaxes his bow and kneels to examine the body. It's a man, definitely, but something is very wrong with his appearance. Patches of his skin – including most of his face – were a necrotic dark greenish grey; rough and dry, just as the knight had heard about on his way to Zenith Gate. His eyes were a mysterious but mystifying yellow. It's difficult to discern the dead man's age, but the thick, dense hair that managed to remain on his head might suggest that he was reasonably young. He's wearing leather upper body armor, but a wound on his neck shows that it didn't help much.

Realizing that he could be a fallen Mistwalker, Atticus begins to pat down the cadaver for a card. He soon finds it in his trouser pocket, folded in half. “Edgar Joyce,” the card reads. It had the number “1” in the upper right corner, and five stamps – three in departure boxes, two in return boxes. Poor soul only lasted two trips into the fog, and met his fate on the third. The two completed departure and return dates show that he stayed in the fog for only a few hours at a time, probably never venturing past this point to begin with. The third departure date was one week ago, so he's been in this state for a short while. He probably assumed he was playing it safe by staying close to the wall, and in his complacency, was attacked. Other than the card, dagger, and clothes on his back, Edgar's corpse carried nothing else on him.

Satisfied with his search, Atticus pockets the sortie card and pulls the arrow out of the dead man's head with great force, practically ripping the entire head off the shoulders. He pauses once the arrow is out, and stares at the stiff's face, half expecting him to get up again, but he doesn't. The knight wipes away the blood and tiny bits of brain matter that was left on the arrow on Edgar's pant leg, and returns to Annaliese, who waited patiently the entire time. Together, they continue journeying forward.