45

Oliver ran for several minutes before daring to stop and rest. Even when he did, he knew he couldn’t rest for long. The guards would quickly catch his trail and pursue him after they finally managed to get the gate open. He had no way of hiding from them once that happened. The only thing he could do was keep putting as much distance as he could from the town.

The biggest problem was that the road had grown deserted in the night. Few if any travelers wished to walk the plains at night. The smartest of them knew of the dangerous monsters that inhabited the grasslands and chose to travel in a wagon. No one dared leave a fortified settlement just before those monsters woke, much less on foot. Oliver was neither the smartest nor the luckiest, and as a result, he knew he would soon face more than just humans.

Already, he could feel the malevolence of more than one creature around him. It felt like eyes watched his every step. More than once, Oliver felt a presence brush against the spell field he kept erected around him as a first warning of impending attack. Whatever was stalking him was not only numerous, but also intelligent. They seemed to be aware of his magic, because nothing fully breached his the spell. Every time one of the unseen monsters brushed against it, they somehow felt it and backed off.

None of them came close enough to be detected by him. To make matters worse, Oliver failed to spot anything using his Aura Vision. He looked in every direction, seeing nothing but the faint yet plentiful auras of the insects around him. Those were so numerous everywhere he went that one of the first lessons his family had him master was filtering the aura of any creature smaller than a rodent from his Aura Vision. It had become second nature to him in the many years since, and he had no trouble doing so now.

What alarmed him was that there was no visible aura near him. This meant two things. First, whatever stalked him had some kind of ability to hide its aura. This was common among magically altered predators, especially the ones who evolved hunting humans.

Secondly, it portended that whatever was nearby rested firmly at the top of this habitat’s food chain. Whatever the beast, it was fierce enough to scare everything else in the area into hiding. There was a sudden and startling blast from a war horn behind him.

When he looked, Oliver could see the torches of a large group of people mounted on horses pounding toward him. Without another thought, Oliver warily began his journey again. Every few minutes, he felt something brush against his ward, but he remained unable to pinpoint his stalker.

This continued for several minutes. The shouts and clomping hooves behind him grew steadily louder, but it would be a while before they overtook him. He had just enough time to figure out his more immediate threats. He remained unable to discover what the monsters were.

Soon, Oliver’s instincts gave him some information that his magic could not as he felt the number of predators stalking him steadily increase. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and refused to relax. He wondered what could be causing such a profound reaction in him. Luckily, Angli had lived for centuries and seen many horrors. She spoke up in his head with her analysis.

“You’re being stalked by a pack of Shivers.”

“You know what these things are? I can’t even see them. How are you so sure?”

“I recognize your body’s reaction to their magical pheromones. They haven’t made their move yet luckily, but they’ve already begun their preparations.”

“What are Shivers? What preparations are you talking about?”

“They’re like feral and demonic cats. They aren’t as big as mountain lions, but they’re fast. They use their voices to cause trepidation in their victims. They feed on fear. Even now they’re sampling your apprehension from afar while they prepare to strike. Their pheromones have already been taken by your body. That’s why your hairs are standing on end. If you don’t dispel the effects, you’ll be paralyzed with fear when the laughter starts.”

“The laughter?” Oliver asked. Somehow that question seemed the most relevant in a sea of wiser and more helpful options.

“Quickly, Oliver. Dispel the effects. With the guards closing distance behind you, they won’t wait much longer.”

Oliver quickly used Free Form to examine himself. At first, he was unable to see anything out of the ordinary. He had not been ensorcelled in any way. No magic seemed to be present that didn’t stem from his own spells. But Angli had spoken of pheromones. Oliver knew that this was more complicated than a simple spell.

When he was younger, his mother had taught him about many of the animals they lived in harmony with inside of the forest. He had particularly remembered his mother talking to him about bees. She had explained that while the whole hive would fly to action to protect itself from human hands, all it took was the right preparations to make the bees see them as family.

His mother had then pulled the smallest vial he had ever seen from her robes. It couldn’t have been bigger than his pinky, the contents couldn’t have been more than a few drops. But his mother had told him it was a vial of concentrated royal pheromones from the glands of a queen. He had never forgotten when his mother had taken a miniscule dropper from her belongings and extracted mostly air from the vial. Only the tiniest amount of liquid made its way into the dropper. When she had squeezed the dropper over his head, however, the reaction was immediate and startling.

The whole hive of bees they had been standing under buzzed to life. His mother stepped away from the hoard of bees that suddenly swarmed over him. He had begun freaking out, but his mother quickly soothed him by telling him that the bees thought he was their queen.

The tiny amount of pheromone he had on him was enough to brainwash an entire bee colony into believing he was their leader. After that, she had walked him through extracting the honey from the hive. Not a single bee stung him that day. Now, so many years later, the lesson he had been taught was coming back to help him.

There were two major differences in his past experience with pheromones and what was happening now. The first was that he was the target of the pheromones in question. He was the creature being affected. The metaphorical bee.

The second major difference in situation was that Angli had called them magical pheromones. If regular pheromones were powerful enough to brain wash a whole species, magical pheromones could probably accomplish almost anything. That was why he wasn’t entirely surprised to find nothing in response to his search.

46

His analysis spell was designed to detect any spells affecting him. It took only a slight mental exercise to alter his spell to show any alteration of consciousness he was experiencing. When he completed the tweaks to his spell, it was immediately apparent. There was a purple glow surrounding his whole body. There were no indications of where the glow was emanating from.

To Oliver’s surprise, the substance surrounding him didn’t seem to be stuck to him. The more he looked, the more it seemed like he was walking through a large field of the energy. The Shiver pack seemed to be emitting a large cloud of effect. Instead of directing the pheromones at a target, they simply spread them over the whole area.

As soon as Oliver realized this, he cast a spell to filter the air around him. At first, the field remained. With intense observation, Oliver found that there was no air in the close vicinity that was not affected by the pheromones.

Upon even closer observation, however, he realized that the tainted air only rose about ten feet in the air before dispersing. By tweaking his spell to funnel the air above him into a cone that continually swirled around him, Oliver was able to disperse the pheromone infused air out of his immediate area.

In just a few seconds, Oliver felt his body relax. The ever-present hairs on the back of his neck finally eased. He took a steadying breath. It was a major stress lifted that he had not been fully aware of. The effects of the Shiver pheromone were more varied and powerful than he had realized. While he was marveling at the difference in his subconscious, he heard the war horn blow behind him again, this time close enough to make his ears ring.

Oliver stopped moving altogether as he realized the implications of what was happening around him. The field of Shiver pheromones spread well behind him, and he was certain the mounted group of soldiers had already passed into the deadly zone. Angli seemed to agree, because a second later she spoke again.

“Those men have no idea what they’ve stumbled into. You should run while you can. At the very least you need to reduce your magical profile. You have too much active magic around you, which might be why they were attracted in the first place. You have a camouflage spell. Try to use Free Form to alter it. You need to camouflage your magical signature instead of your physical one.”

Oliver didn’t have to try very hard. He had experimented with Free Form enough to know that his only limitation with it lay in his will power and imagination. In just a few seconds, he watched as the magical presence of all his spells faded from his sight. Proving the need for urgency, right when Oliver completed his preparations, two things happened.

The first was that the group of soldiers finally came close enough to accost him. They were shouting for him to stop, clearly not noticing that he already had when the second event occurred. The horses of the soldiers came to a resounding halt when the most bone chilling noise Oliver had ever heard pierced the early night air.

Numerous haunting voices broke out in the tall grass on both sides of the road. Each one emitted a sinister and maniacal laugh. They were like a chorus of giggling phantoms. The sounds multiplied all around him, spreading up and down the trail, well past the group of horses and well beyond the point where Oliver stood listening.

The sheer number of cackling voices all around him threatened to overwhelm Oliver despite his preparations. The effect of the pheromones was clear, however, as every single man that had been pursuing him screamed bloody murder at the sound of the laughter. Their horses remained pinned in place by their own fear.

There was a still moment while Oliver observed the group from a short distance away. It lasted for the shortest instant before the attack broke loose. If Oliver wasn’t looking at the man when it happened, he would have missed it altogether. As the men screamed their hearts out, the first victim was claimed.

The man in front, a regular soldier who had no distinguishing marks, had only enough time to glance to his side as his eyes saw movement before a black form leapt the several feet from the ground to the back of his horse and tore his throat out in one gruesome motion, Before the man could even react, his ability to scream was taken and he toppled from his horse, already choking on his own blood.

The same scene happened repeatedly across the whole length of the road. The horrifying cat monsters were so quick, Oliver had no time to get a clear view of them. Their victims were dislodged from their mounts and dragged into the tall grass around the road. The blood spatter flew in all directions as more and more men were claimed.

Oliver watched in horror as the first of the horses were claimed. Oliver thought he was going to get a clear view as it happened, but to his surprise, the cat that tackled the horse actually latched onto the horse by its neck and steered it into the grass, biting it several times as it ran. Only a few dozen feet into the tall grass, the horse fell. The whole thing happened so quickly; Oliver jumped back in shock. It was only seconds before more horses went down in the tall grass. Oliver was astounded that no cat had lunged for him, but Angli spoke again, once again proving her ability to read his thoughts.

“You aren’t under their control anymore. They can’t feed on your fear as they kill you the same way all those poor souls are dying. They will devour their victims alive. Only when the men finally die will their lust for fear be sated.”

Oliver just turned from the carnage. He sprinted into the night, followed by the persistent laughter of the Shiver pack as they fed. He ran as hard and fast as he could, his mind replaying the horror he had just witnessed on a loop for long hours. He could still hear the laughter in his head long after the night had returned to silence. Oliver had only one goal; to put as much distance between himself and the horrible massacre of which he was the sole survivor.

“You were right, Angli,” he said several hours after the fact.

“What was I right about?” she asked.

“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” he said.

47

Oliver didn’t sleep that night. He ran long into the night, never stopping until he came to the next settlement. His family never bothered with developed areas before, only visiting the cities which housed some kind of Wellspring, so he had no idea what many of them were called. This particular town was larger than the last. Oliver knew that the towns would only get bigger, becoming sprawling cities the closer he came to Cavania. Soon he wouldn’t be able to risk entering towns at all.

It was still dark, and even if he had the horrible idea to call for someone inside the gates, Oliver knew he would be forced to wait for the sun to rise before he’d be allowed to enter. So instead, he decided to circumnavigate the town entirely. His silent procession did nothing to alert the sentries posted at various intervals around the town walls.

He moved in darkness. His only betrayal was that he was forced to walk in the slightly too thin strip of manicured ground that paralleled the town walls. He hadn’t felt a trace of Shivers since his flight from the massacre, but he was not foolish enough to believe nothing could be watching him from the high grass.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Angli seemed to think keeping his magical presence hidden would be enough to hide from them, but Oliver had no idea how. He shuddered heavily as his mind replayed the brutal and horrifying scene he had witnessed. The scene replayed in his mind until Angli spoke up to dispel its hold on him.

“You need to relax. You are alive. Do not let yourself hold onto the fear. Fear has a place. Its place is in the present. You must never fear the past nor future. Only concern yourself with the matters in front of you. What has happened is in the past. What will soon happen is in the future. Neither should be feared.”

Oliver took a deep breath. She was right, as always. He had no need to fear something he had already lived through. If the Shiver pack attacked again, he would be more than justified feeling fear. As it was, he was only hampering himself mentally. He sighed heavily as he made his way around the stone walls of whichever town he passed. Soon he was well beyond the dwelling and continuing west towards his next fatal encounter.

When the sun rose a few hours later, the road became more populated again. Oliver kept his head down and passed his fellow travelers in silence. None paid him heed as they all meandered to their destinations. Wagons rolled by in both directions, and any time the road forked, the populace of the road seemed to temporarily triple. He knew from experience that traders often set up shop in those locations, providing food and water and whatever other provisions one might need to travel the various roads branching from the forks. What he saw in those spots though, blew his mind.

It was like pandemonium. People scurried here and there, shouting and gesticulating. Other shouts answered from various places depending on what was being asked, and Oliver had a headache trying to decipher all he was experiencing. He quickly decided to move on before it grew any worse.

He had never liked populated areas. Seeing as he had grown up in the woods, raised to hunt and kill beasts, the civilized life was just an odd concept to him. Why would he want so many people around him all the time? He had never liked people. They had the tendency to be the worst creatures on the planet. And there were very few redeeming qualities. Oliver had no desire to be a part of that wheel.

He kept moving west, passing the trading stations as quickly as he could when he came across them. The days passed by quickly, and to his relief, the nights remained free of horrors. Either his wards were protecting him sufficiently, or he had moved far enough from hostile territory that he didn’t need to worry.

One thing he knew was that he was getting close to the heart of Ro’s new empire. Thousands of years ago, when the Abandoned Oaks became, well, abandoned, the human king of the time began his conquest to claim as much land on the eastern borders of the ancient forest as he could. There was a great deal of success, as witnessed by Oliver in the many settlements he had been passing. It was well known however, that the vast majority of the country remained to the west of the Abandoned Oaks.

This was put into question by the massive sprawling city Oliver could see in the distance. It was the most massive enclosure he had ever seen. It rested on the edge of a never-ending expanse of trees in the distance which Oliver knew from experience to be the Abandoned Oaks. The city was something he had never seen before. He asked Angli about it, but since almost every city was new from her time, she had no idea.

“This city wasn’t here before,” he said to her.

“It has been over ten years since Ro was released. A lot can happen in that amount of time,” Angli responded.

Oliver accepted that she was probably right and just continued walking towards it. He would have to pass through the city to start on his boringly long journey around the massive forest. The detour was necessary, but Oliver hated it given how urgent his quest was.

He walked that whole day, watching the sprawling mass of wood and stone grow closer as he approached it. Sitting behind it, rose the ominous expanse of trees known as the Abandoned Oaks. The city seemed to be nestled slightly into the edge of the great trees. The road wound around several hills before approaching the massive city parallel to the forest.

The buildings were huge, several stories in some cases, but the trees rose even higher. They loomed close to the walls, and Oliver had the suspicion that predators lurked in their branches, stalking lone inhabitants of the massive city if any were foolish enough to be out at night. It was mid evening before he came close enough to see the gates.

He read the banner on the city walls and learned that it had been called Remora. That was also when he learned that the gates were not manned by soldiers, but by a full eight-man squad of Blessed. There were three Brutes, three Enduriel, and two Orenda.

To make matters worse, they were scanning over everyone who passed by. Anyone who had a concealed face was stopped and made to show themselves. When Oliver saw that, he knew immediately what they were scanning for; him.

He had already come too close to turn back. The tide of people moving towards the gate all around him would make it almost impossible to quickly backtrack from the city without being noticed. Since he was going to be noticed anyway though, he figured he should make a move sooner rather than later. This was a trap. He knew it as surely as he knew Illari was one weird ass lady.

“I heard that,” Illari said in his head. Her tone was not mad but amused.

Oliver ignored her and continued to ponder his situation. The Blessed before him appeared to be there to catch him. But Ro was smart enough to know he wouldn’t walk into their custody. Their true purpose was to force Oliver into the one course of action worse than facing a squad of Blessed; he would have to enter the Abandoned Oaks.

The trees were said to be haunted, cursed, poisoned, and infested with the worst monsters known to man, and probably a few unknown to them as well. Oliver had absolutely no desire to step foot in there. He asked Angli what she thought and found that it was worse than he knew.

“This is the center of the forest perimeter. If you continue west from here, which is the only way to accurately gauge how long it will take, you will have to pass through the heart of the forest.”

“What is the significance of that?”

“Legend has it, the magical tragedy that forced the elves from their homes struck in the heart of the forest, in their largest city.”

“Great,” he thought.

There was no avoiding it. He could either attempt to kill these men here and now, risking the lives of countless innocent people, an option he knew he would never take if he had another. Or he could dart into the woods now, drawing the attention of the Blessed and begin a drawn-out engagement within the dangerous expanse of trees known for claiming the surest of adventurers.

Oliver took a deep sigh. It was the sigh of a man resigned to a fate he could not choose for himself. With it, he let go of the resentment he felt at once again being manipulated by others into making a decision he knew he would regret. As he let out his massive breath, he darted from the trail. The shout came almost immediately.

“Hey!”

48

Oliver sprinted from the trail into the shade of the trees. The shouts grew in volume, and he heard the squad begin to mobilize. The trees hid Oliver from view quickly enough that no arrow could target him, which was fortunate. If even one of the explosive missiles came close to him, it could spell certain doom for him. Without a better course of action, Oliver zigzagged through the trees. He wove through the brambles and branches, expertly dodging the jagged limbs that threatened to catch his eyes.

It wasn’t long before the people following him began to spread out. Each of them took a position behind him that slowly forced him into a trap. The Enduriel spread wide, using their superior stamina to eventually overtake his progress. Oliver was concerned that they would fire arrows at him, but they just continued past him, keeping a safe distance from him.

It soon became clear that Oliver was being trapped. If he kept going, the men in front of him would eventually spring their trap. If he stopped, the three Brutes behind him would close in and attack. He only saw one course of action.

Oliver knew there was no good way to continue the chase, so he did the one thing he hoped would help. He cast Free Form to hide his magical signature, just like he had to escape the Shiver pack. When he was sure his presence was fully masked, he cast the original spell to camouflage his body.

It was not a perfect disguise, but when he swerved around a particularly large tree and leapt into the branches, his form was obscured enough to let the men behind him pass by. He waited several minutes after they did before daring to move. He considered returning to Remora, but it was extremely unlikely that there would not be additional Blessed waiting for his possible return.

There remained only one option. He had to remove the Dark Matter from his adversaries and either kill or escape them before they found a way to bring him down. The odds were, as ever, stacked against him.

Oliver didn’t let his situation dissuade him. It seemed like every waking moment since his Blessing by the True Wellspring was spent in preparation of one kind or another for moments like this. By now he had an idea of the kind of life his ancestors were given. According to Angli, the members of their family had always been in a league of their own.

Countless stories and legends had spread about the mythical prowess of the Albrine. Yet, looking back on his life, they seemed like the equivalent of watered-down mead. He had grown up believing that the beasts and monsters he and his family brought down were the epitome of terror and that only through their intervention would the world be safe.

Now that he was running for his life and fighting constantly, he couldn’t help but look back on his upbringing with scorn. His family were fools. Not even one of them could have conceived of the insanity he was living. It was like something happened between the time Angli lived and his own time that greatly altered the views and abilities of his family. Acts his father would have considered legendary now seemed so mediocre.

Oliver had no more time for retrospection, as the Blessed below him had converged. He watched as they regrouped and inspected the area for signs of him. At least, Oliver thought they would start by searching for him. Instead, he was given a great shock when one of the enemy spell casters raised a shining hand into the air. They each spoke a few words and there was a bright flash, and Oliver felt a thick and stale air spread out around him. He had no time to wonder what it meant before a heavy breeze blasted the stuffy feeling away, washing over him like a spring gust.

In an instant, the mages found him. It took him a few seconds to realize the spell that was cast had dispelled all his active enchantments. Oliver’s eyes widened as one of the three Enduriel nocked an arrow faster than the eye could follow. He had only enough time to swipe an arm through the air and cast a quick spell before an arrow was flying toward him, a deadly twinkle encompassing it. Luckily, Oliver’s spell was meant to counter just such an arrow.

There were numerous trees between himself and the archer, so when the arrow left the bow, Oliver’s spell called to every branch between him and the arrow. It asked them to move and stretch to areas they normally didn’t reach. When the spell was cast, every branch made it a priority to intercept the arrow before it could reach him.

The results were more successful than he could have hoped, and the arrow detonated against a tree limb that flicked into place soon after it had been released. The resulting explosion was enough to obscure the battlefield and allow Oliver to change position. The exact position change was a calculated risk, much like every move Oliver seemed to make. He leapt directly into the cloud of smoke that had spread across the area. He jumped straight towards the three Brutes, which had all made a wall with their bodies. The three had no way of seeing him coming, so when his transparent blade struck thrice, like a bee sting to each opponent, they had no time for defense.

All three of them went down under his exorcism. To ensure that they wouldn’t get back up, he cast one of his many utility spells. It was called Drowsy. The three dropped to the ground as the combined effects of his soul strike and sleep spell hit them.

He backed off after that, happy to have reduced his opposition by three. The smoke was clearing by then, so his retreat was well calculated. When the remaining Blessed witnessed what he was able to do in the few short seconds he had, they drew their ranks tighter together.

All three archers stood with their backs to the two Orenda. Both were making intricate hand gestures in the air, the necessary formula to some complex spell, he was sure. No one made a move as they worked. Oliver studied the spell closely as it was being woven. His own spell coalesced as he constructed the exact structure he needed to cancel the magic. He watched intently, not allowing himself to miss even a second of the casting.

As a result, just when the Orenda finished their spell, Oliver released his own spell. He let the magical power escape as the two enemy mages shouted their completion aloud. Oliver didn’t know what was supposed to happen, although he had surmised from the aura that it was some kind of destruction spell.

What did happen was, when the two shouted, a deafening bang accompanied their voices. Oliver covered his eyes at the retina singeing flash that followed and was nearly shaken from his perch in the trees when the entire forest shook with an explosion. The blast completely incinerated the two Orenda, and the Enduriel were blown in different directions as it washed over them from behind.

Not a single one of them had time to even register what had happened before being hurled ass over tea kettle through the trees. They all smashed messily into trees and fell, utterly ravaged.

Oliver felt Angli cast a spell of some kind, but he had no time to ask her about it, because even after the blast, one of the Enduriel was struggling to rise. He was also coughing blood violently down his front, but the ability of the Blessed was clear. Oliver quickly dropped in front of the man, expunging the Dark Matter inside him with a quick thrust.

The severing, in addition to the massive damage he had suffered was enough to surpass his limitations, and the man fell, beaten, back to the ground. The other two were an easy matter to deal with, and they too remained on the ground after he was finished. When it came to the two Orenda, he had accidentally disintegrated, Oliver had no idea what to do.

“What is going to happen now?” he asked. The Dark Matter in the men was connected to their spirit, not their bodies, so when the body died, the spirit would carry the Dark Matter with it back into the Web of Life, thus corrupting it. Oliver was surprised to learn that he was not too late, thanks to Angli.

“I have bound their spirits to the sight of their death. It is a complex spell, and not one I like to use. The spirit deserves to be free when the stress of the body grows too much. But as far as our needs are concerned, it’s exactly what we want.”

Oliver was shocked as ever to learn how quickly Angli could adapt to a situation and find a solution where he had assumed there wasn’t one. The ground was incredibly hot under his feet as he approached the sight of the detonation. Several trees were in flames, and a circle around twenty feet in diameter was stripped bare.

The ground was indented in a shallow crater at ground zero of the explosion. Oliver had to cast a spell to keep the heat from burning his clothes and hair in order to get close enough to do what he had to. When he made it to the spot, his magical vision showed him a pitiable sight.

In the place of bodies, two pale shades sat tethered to the ground like someone put a heavy rock on a mouse’s tail. They stretched as high into the air as they could, but they were unable to untether themselves and pass on. Oliver looked at the sad representation of the two men who had tried to kill him with sorrow in his eyes.

All because of Ro, even more innocent people had to die. It absolutely infuriated him. One day soon, he would make the man answer for his crimes. He seethed.

“Damn him,” he said quietly.

Oliver approached the two shades in front of him and didn’t waste any time striking the Dark Matter within them. They each became unbound from the earth after the Dark Matter was extracted. As it was sucked into his sword, not for the first time, Oliver noticed several tendrils swirl around his arm before settling into his skin.

He felt no different after it happened, but given the nature of Dark Matter, he was seriously concerned by it. As if prompted by his inspection, a deep voice spoke inside his head. Angli didn’t seem to notice it, but when it spoke, forgotten memories of a haunting encounter sprang back to his mind. His hands immediately started shaking and sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Soon,” the voice said.

“Oliver, are you okay? I know this is difficult to accept, but such is the nature of destiny.”

“I’m fine,” he lied. She seemed to think his discomfort stemmed from the scene in front of him. He didn’t know why, but he felt like whatever was inside of him was something he shouldn’t let anyone else know about. Not even Angli. When he thought this, the voice spoke again. Again, it only spoke one word.

“Good,” it said.

Oliver shook the voice from his mind. He didn’t have the time to worry about it. He conferred with Angli and decided that his best course of action would be to travel west through the forest and hope whatever was living there didn’t find him.

The bright side was that assuming he survived the journey, he could make it to Cavania in less than a month. Taking the road all the way around the forest was the longest part of the journey, and doing so would take well over two months. If he could make his way through the trees, he would be at his destination twice as soon.

He had no desire to spend time pondering his decision, so he simply cast a spell to keep him heading west and took off into the descending darkness. He had to rekindle his cloaking spells, as well as his night vision, but thanks to Angli, it was the work of only a second to do so. Soon he was flying over the uneven terrain of the Abandoned Oaks with speed few could hope to match, all the while praying that all the terrible tales he had always heard about the place were myths.