"So the idea behind this section of the dungeon is to make it very apparent early on that it's for people of a higher level," Zack explained, as the party of four stood at the threshold between the meadow and his newest zone. "I don't want to discourage people from trying, but I want to make it very clear that most people won't be able to attempt it their first time through. That's what the meadow's second floor is for, after all."

"Right," Greg noted, peering at the tightly grouped trees. The orc's bulky frame would struggle to squeeze between them, if he even fit at all. There was only a single path wide enough for a group of would-be adventurers to traverse. Without another word, he stepped onto the path, and started walking. The others lagged behind him for only a second before catching up.

"First, customers will come to a rest area," Zack explained. The group passed into a clearing, at the centre of which a campfire was burning. The flames let off a warm orange light, and as they stepped into its glow, Zack watched as their health and stamina started creeping up. "This was one of my first successful experiments in infusing the fire element with other aspects of my dungeon, in this case the health potions I like to dole out. The result is a fire that will steadily heal people over time."

Alex's eyebrows shot up as he studied the flame. "That's really cool," he said, reaching a hand out to the fire. Normally, the sight of someone trying to touch open flames would be concerning, but Alex's own fire affinity protected him from most of the harmful effects, while the healing blaze helped ward off the rest. As the kobold's fingers dipped into the crackling fire, Zack could see a thin thread of mana trying to connect with Alex's head.

This was something that happened when a person was nearing a breakthrough. The closer someone was to leveling up, to learning a new spell or elemental affinity, the closer they came to deepening their connection to the Akashic System. Alex's hand lingered in the flame for a few seconds before he pulled it away again, studying his scaly palm. The thread deepened in colour, but it didn't find full purchase. Alex was close to a breakthrough, but not quite there yet. Zack had learned to identify this stage as someone learning something they could do, but not quite how to do it just yet.

The party sat around the fire on provided log benches for a few minutes, just allowing their health and stamina to recover. Salazar was able to monitor his values via the status tattoo imprinted on the back of his left hand. Greg, Chandra, and Alex relied on Zack to tell them when they were fully recovered and safe to go on.

"Ideally Iris and I will work out a way for others to see their status even without tattoos, but we're still figuring that out," Zack explained. "The cards we make don't update in real time. You get one printed and it just shows you your info when it was printed out. We are experimenting with other materials but so far no luck. If we could get ahold of one of those status tattoo patterns, we might be able to do something different, but that's easier said than done."

Salazar shrugged. "I can't just give you my hand."

"I wasn't asking," Zack chuckled. "Don't worry, we'll figure it out. You guys are good, by the way. Oh, that reminds me."

Before the crew could stand, there was a sound like rustling branches. Chandra's ears flicked as she whipped around, her amber eyes scanning the dense trees for any sign of danger. "I thought you said this was a rest area?" she asked, peering up at Zack's wisp.

"It is, but that doesn't mean I want groups to stay here for their entire time. Linger too long and something else will come check out the clearing."

As soon as Zack finished saying it, something lumbered out of the trees. That alone was an impressive feat, considering the trees were so densely packed, but what was even more surprising about it was the shape it took. It was tall with impossibly long limbs, and thin in an unsettling way. Its skin was rough like bark, and dark enough to hide in the shadows between trees. Instead of eyes, it had two gnarled knots where eyes would be on its face, and no mouth of any kind.

"Zack…" Chandra warned, rising from her log seat and raising her claws defensively. As she got up, the others finally noticed the creature for themselves and leapt to attention. "What is this?"

"That's the incentive to keep moving," Zack chuckled. "I call it the Walk-Behind. It's a slow moving mob designed to keep parties from lingering in the rest area for too long."

Alex raised his wand and lobbed a fireball at the monster, only for the spell to splash uselessly against its wooden hide. "Oh. That's concerning."

"Yeah. You're not supposed to fight this thing," Zack explained. "I mean, you can. It won't work, though."

"You sound awfully sure of yourself," Salazar grinned, stepping forward. He clenched his fists and started channeling his aether, before hurling his power towards the ground under the Walk-Behind's long feet. The earth turned to churning quicksand, but rather than sink into it the monster just walked on the empty air. "Zack, that's cheating," the elf glowered.

"I know. Like I said, you're not supposed to fight it and you'll lose if you try. Here's the secret: it's not actually a mob," Zack giggled giddily. "It's just a creepy looking tree that I've programmed to act like a mob. A few twists to the structure has basically turned it into an animatronic with preprogrammed behaviours, but it can't actually react to attacks. Ergo, you can hurl everything you have at it, and nothing will actually work."

Greg walked up to the strange creature and stared at it. The Walk-Behind didn't even seem to notice his presence as it continued slowly inching forward, reaching out towards the fire pit. The orc threw back his head in laughter, nodding his approval. "That's funny," he said, turning to the others. "It's just a jumpscare with extra steps!"

"Exactly!" Zack laughed with Greg. "The point isn't to fight it, it's get parties moving again. Once they either retreat to the meadow or advance deeper into the forest, the Walk-Behind goes back to its hiding spot."

"Is the Walk-Behind that test you were mentioning?" Alex asked, as the party gathered up their gear and advanced deeper into the forest.

"It's phase one of the test, yeah. If the group feels confident enough to continue, they'll flee deeper into the forest. If not, they'll retreat to the meadow. At least, that's how I hope they'll act. I'll let a few groups experience it first, but if they can't make it past the Walk-Behind I'll have to reconsider how it works, maybe turn it into a mob proper," Zack explained, the wisp speaking out loud. "Anyway, the true test is what waits just around that corner."

As if on cue, the party came upon a dense and sudden twist in the path. With Zack's warning in the air, they immediately got into formation again. Alex didn't cling so tight to Greg's side, since there was a lot more open space for line of sight compared to the tall grass. Chandra had nowhere to hide, so she stayed close beside the others too. The only one who seemed to favour these conditions was Salazar, who took point as they rounded the corner.

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What they saw gave them pause. There were strange wooden creatures dancing around a bonfire. Like the Walk-Behind, they had barky skin and joints that looked more like tree limbs locking together. Where they differed, though, was in the strange wooden masks they had in place of faces. They looked like rotten stumps roughly carved into animal shapes. Some of them carried bows, while others carried clubs or staves.

The party stared at the creatures for a short moment, before the wooden mobs turned in unison towards them.

"I call these the Woodfolk. This is where the test really begins," Zack chuckled. "It's more about group cohesion and tactics than power level."

That was all the warning Zack could give the group before hell broke loose. The wooden monsters burst into action, charging at the adventurers while screeching horrid noises. Greg quickly got into position, intercepting the first wave of club-wielding creatures with an aetheric barrier. Three of the mobs bounced uselessly off the wall, giving Alex the opportunity to pepper them with rapid bolts of magic.

The monsters burned easily enough, their wooden skin weak to the blaze. They let out squeals of agony and backed off, only for the ranged fighters to start unloading spells of their own. Greg erected the barrier again, this time at an angle to position it between the hail of spells and the party.

"Zack, this seems a little unfair!" Greg called to the wisp, but kept his focus on the attackers.

"That's because it is," Zack agreed. "The meadow is easy mode, but from here on out I'm trying to train people to think about how they use magic. The kid gloves have to come off to some degree, otherwise nobody will learn anything."

Greg opened his mouth to argue, but stopped before he said anything. Instead, he knit his eyebrows together in focus and dug in his heels. Alex used the gap between the barrier and the ground to unleash a wave of fire at the Woodfolk still rushing towards them.

"Chandra, take out the back row," Salazar ordered, shifting up to stand beside her.

"What?" Chandra asked, as she looked out at the formation of wooden mobs.

"I've seen monsters that act like this in the wild," he explained. "Groups that behave not unlike us adventurers. They almost always have three rows of fighters to deal with: melee, short range, and long range."

"That seems extremely specific," Chandra noted with a frown.

Salazar nodded. "We don't actually know why they're that specific, we just know that they tend to pop up like that. Monster groups are rarer than, say, a pack of witchwolves, but they do still happen."

Chandra flinched at the mention of witchwolves, then looked out at the group of Woodfolk. Sure enough, the stave wielding mobs were keeping their distance, while the weapon wielders stayed in close range. Between the two of them were the mobs with bows. They mostly used their magic to bolster the front line fighters, patching up their wounds. She nodded and dropped to all fours.

"I'll need an opening to get through them," she said.

"I can help with that," Salazar grinned, and started channeling his aether. They waited for a good few seconds, while Alex kept the melee attackers at bay. When the front line fighters rotated out with a fresh and unharmed group, Salazar touched his glowing palm to the ground.

Suddenly, the earth took on the consistency of water. The Woodfolk stumbled and tripped as they no longer had anything solid to stand on, ground bubbling churning. As their formation broke up, Chandra dashed out from under the barrier and charged around the group towards their back line. As she ran, Zack watched as a thread of mana snapped into place on her head.

Chandra's jaws became wreathed in silver light as she lunged towards one of the caster mobs, and a ghostly echo of her fangs ripped into its body. They pierced right through the Woodfolk's wooden shell, breaking it like it was just an ordinary chunk of bone. The mana spent to cast this new spell was refunded to Chandra as she absorbed the dead mob's structural energy, and she kept the silver fangs going as she ran for the next mob in line.

With their healers disrupted, the front line mobs no longer had anything keeping them patched up. Sensing an opportunity, Salazar disabled the churning earth and started to advance. Some of the Woodfolk remained trapped in the ground, while the archers had been far enough out of range to avoid the worst of its effects.

"Alex, take out the ranged fighters. Greg, with me on the melee," Salazar ordered.

Again, Greg looked like he might want to argue, but decided against it. He dropped his barrier and charged forward, drawing the attention of the Woodfolk with a sweeping blade of crimson aether. As he drew their attention, Alex used the opportunity to jog around to the side and start lobbing fireballs into the archers. When it looked like they might turn their attention on the kobold, either Chandra would thrash them or Greg would draw their attention with a magical tether.

Salazar was more efficient at killing the mobs than anyone else. For him, all it took was a single stab from his glowing knife to disrupt their mana and slay them on the spot. With their back line slain, it didn't take very long for the group to mop up the rest of the Woodfolk.

Zack kept quiet tally, and was surprised to discover that Chandra had the most kills out of all the group. He partially chalked that up to the fact she was the first to really engage with them. Unsurprisingly, Alex had the second most kills. Wooden monsters were weak to fire, after all.

When all was said and done, the group absorbed the loose mana from the monsters and stood beside the bonfire. Like the campfire before it, this flame had healing properties.

"That fight is going to be way too hard," Chandra criticized, glowering up at Zack's wisp. "There is no way people coming straight from the meadow will be able to beat that."

"That's kind of the point," Zack explained. "Like I mentioned before, I want encounters to be scalable to the skill of groups attempting them, but this encounter is the exception. I can modify how many mobs are in the fight to accomodate smaller or larger groups, but in the end I want to know the people running the dungeon are ready for the challenges ahead."

Chandra raised a finger and pointed at the wisp, but before she could argue Salazar put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm inclined to agree with Zack on this," he said, tempering her comment before it could leave her mouth. "That's always been a concern of mine, too, that people delving into Zack's depths just aren't ready for some of the challenges. There is, after all, still the burrow under the meadow for people who can't get past this fight."

The werewolf blinked slowly, and then nodded. "I suppose you've got a point," she confessed. "I just don't understand why you have to make the second zone so much harder than the first."

"It's not just about scalability," Greg explained, tapping his chin in thought. "It's about teaching. The point of this test isn't to stop people from advancing further, but to force them to learn how to advance further."

"Exactly!" Zack's wisp bobbed in place excitedly. "We have two different types of customers right now: the first are the amateurs that just want to enjoy the fantasy of fighting monsters. For them, the meadow and burrow will be more than enough. The second type are the people eager to learn. For them, they want to push forward no matter the challenge. This fight is for them, to force them to actually learn how to fight properly rather than just bash bunnies on the head."

Salazar rubbed his chin curiously, before nodding in approval. "I like this a lot. That has always been one of the major issues with new recruits in adventurer guilds. They always have to learn these sort of tactics from, essentially, zero experience. Having some way to practice without danger would certainly make this encounter a boon to any guild hopeful."

"Is this why the bonfire also has healing properties?" Alex asked, pointing with his chin at the blaze in question.

"Yeah. This fight isn't about how strong a person is phyiscally, but their tactical ingenuity," Zack explained, floating his wisp over to the fire. "These are the same kind of flames as the campfire in the rest area. It works on both delvers and mobs, though, so you can't just attrition your way through the encounter."

Everyone turned to Chandra, who stood with her arms crossed defiantly. Everyone had seen her new spell in the middle of battle, so it was clear that Zack's tactics had worked to some degree. She rolled her eyes then smirked. "Fine, I guess it does work rather well," she admitted. "And these mobs are way less creepy than the spiders you used to have."

"Oh, those are still around," Zack chuckled, earning a horrified glower from the werewolf. "What? It's a forest! Spiders would absolutely make sense to have in a forest!"

As she started arguing, Zack felt a sudden pressure against his influence, like something outside of his mana was testing the limits of it. It didn't hurt, but it was incredibly difficult to ignore. His abrupt silence in the face of Chandra's spider-inspired protests didn't go unnoticed, and the four delvers paused to watch him.

"Zack, you okay?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, sorry. I think we have visitors?" Zack said, his wisp twisting in the air curiously. "Sorry guys, I think your delve might have to wait."