The party had trudged deep into the woods for two days, they had to count the hours using the little sunlight that pressed its way through the dense canopy. The trees kissed the clouds and the ground was soft and wet. Gin-rith was able to lead them through using markers on trees only a Sinley could see, magical waypoints sung into the bark by the scouts and hunters. The party walked single file, Kaleb behind Gin-rith, Iridia leading the stag and Flencer at the back of the pack. Lanterns dangled and swayed from them, causing the shadows to dance and put fears of stalking creatures in their peripheral vision.

“We haven’t had a path for a day now, me feet are tragic,” Flencer grumbled as he stumbled through a muddy thicket. “And how much can a stag shit?”

Thorny plants scratched and raked at their ankles, wet branches slapped them in the face from darkened angles and the dampness had saturated their underclothes. “The path is not safe,” Gin-rith called without looking back. The densely packed woods reverberated his voice, sending the words swirling around them.

“I’m going to need another bath, I’ve been filthy since I left Anglespree” Iridia stepped over a fallen branch, foiling its plan to trip her.

“Oh aye, a nice hot bath, ya know I miss that wagon now, we should get anutha when we get outta ‘ere.”

“Will you two stop your whingey whining!” Kaleb snapped.

“We have a problem,” Gin-rith said grimly.

“Don’t you start.”

“I am not making this whinging and whining you speak of, but I am advising you that we have a problem, and it requires a decision from the party leader, Kaleb.” Gin-rith turned and held his staff up before a large tree. “The markings speak of two ways, one through caverns, another to continue through the thicket.”

“I don’t see the problem.”

“The way is given an alternative for a reason, and the reason is not written.”

The rain came down again, pinging off Iridia and Kaleb’s armour. The buck shivered and let out a high-pitched grunt which Kaleb took as another whine. “Now Antlers is pissed off.” Kaleb sighed.

“The cave might be nice, eh, a bit ‘o warmth wouldn’t go amiss.”

“I am quite aware of what a cave might provide, but I imagine we are not the only…beings in this forest that are aware of this,” Kaleb said flatly.

The buck gave a rattle of his antlers and sprayed wet muddy water over the back of Iridia. “Ah, bloody stag.” She coughed and wiped her nose, her blonde locks were matted to her face and the dim glow of the lantern light brightened her misery-ridden features.

“We’ll take the caves.”

Iridia hoisted her shield from her back and held it over her head to guard from the cold rain. “Oh great, now I have been promoted to parasol for the lady in waiting.” The shield vibrated.

“Well, you’re multifaceted, why don’t you sing us a song?” Iridia said with a playful smirk, She had to find some way of getting through this.

“Oh, a song is it?” The shield hummed and glowed.

Lady Iridia owns a spear and shield.

A pointless thing she cannot wield.

To battle she’d ride; but has no steed.

Reminds me of; a pub without mead

The man she loved, Morgan has fled.

A prettier Elf; tall and slim he’ll bed.

“Enough!” Iridia was positively on fire.

“I was enjoyin’ that.” Flencer chuckled before his laugh was cut short when he tripped over a root and made an almighty wet slap in the mud.

Iridia returned the ribbing, “How’s the mud pie, Flencer?”

The shield burst into song once more:

Short, rotund and clumsy is he,

Fell fast, fell flat, face first into shit

He cried he moaned, he had to spit

Smelling rotten, muddy bottom,

Caked in crap, about to snap

Ginger and garish

Face quite harish

Ohhhh! a Dwarf, what a sight to see!

Iridia laughed, “Excellent, one of my favourites so far!”

Kaleb shook his head and moved up to the side of Gin-rith who had slowed.

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“The caverns are in sight.”

“I do not see a thing,” Kaleb tried to peer through the trees with an amateur side-to-side head motion.

Gin-rith stood statuesque on a large rock, “My feeling is shrouded in doubt, Kaleb, the journey through this forest is long, we need to break for warmth, but the hole exudes death.”

Kaleb rested on his hammer, the end buried into the soft mud as he pondered, “What would you do, Zale?”

Gin-rith turned and looked at Kaleb curiously.

The hammer hummed, glowed, went dark for a moment then spoke. “Death prevails in the Divine’s absence, attend its funeral and guide it to the light.”

“Into the cave.” Kaleb smiled at Gin-rith.

“The hammer speaks wisely.”

“Sometimes.” Kaleb hoisted it over his shoulder and held his arm out for Gin-rith to take the lead once more.

The party made their way to the cave, It was all uphill and the soft forest bed made climbing twice as hard, the stag slipped a few times and Kaleb had to help with the reigns. The mouth of the cave sucked air in and let out a wail as a draft whisked through its rocky intestines.

Kaleb kicked at the dirt by the entrance; it was harder and something shone under the lantern's light. He dusted further with his foot then knelt to pull at bigger clumps of dirt, An alabaster face stared back at him, “One of yours?”

Gin-rith looked over the skull, “Unknown, hard to tell how long it’s been here.”

Iridia and Flencer moved up to investigate Kaleb’s discovery. “Where’s the body?” Asked Flencer.

Kaleb looked at him searchingly.

“If there ain’t nobody, that means the head was separated, that means he probably din’t die o’ the elements.”

“There’s more than one thing in these woods that is capable of this, and that does not include the ones I don’t know of.” Gin-rith sang those words, then knelt to touch the skull. “Rest with the roots traveller.”

“You better not die in this cave, I shan’t be wanting to sit for eternity in the dark with a hammer for my only company.” The shield glowed a dim blue on Iridia’s arm.

“And I shan’t want to listen to your antiquated rhymes for a minute.” Zale offered a blunt riposte befitting his avatar.

“I’d prefer it if the weapons would not bicker.” Kaleb marched into the cave and held his lantern up, The party shared a glance and followed behind, lighting up the first area with him using their lanterns.

They stood in a wide circular cavern, perhaps thirty feet in circumference. The walls were painted with indistinguishable images and symbols. Squinting Kaleb could make some things out but that might have been a coincidence. “Is this your language, Gin-rith?”

“No, I have never seen this text before, if that’s what it is.”

Iridia held her lantern over some more images, They were not exactly squiggles, there was a definition to them which suggested purpose, the curves were pre-mediated and the symbol sizes were consistent. “It looks evil.”

“The unknown often looks sinister, Iridia my dear,” Gin-rith’s voice echoed about the caves, “It is the foundation for many unwanted conflicts.”

“She isn’t wrong though, this stuff makes me uneasy.” Flencer studied more of the runes that seemed to cover every inch of the walls, even the ones high up.

Kaleb whispered something and his hammer brightened the darkness and flooded the cavern with the light, revealing an expansive mural that crawled from the skirt to the apex, the scope of it combined with the sickly twists and jagged stabs of the texts was enough to prickle the hairs on the parties necks. The walls whispered with hate in their words and malice in their tone, but it was impossible to make out the meaning of them. They were in a language that befouled the senses, a far cry from the melodic tongue of the Half-Elves.

“I must concur, I sense an evil in this unknown too, Iridia.” Gin-rith conceded.

The light from Kaleb’s hammer flickered and gave way to the gloom. “Zale, we require your light still.”

“Something presses on my soul, Kaleb, it smothers my light.”

“Then this cave is a place of evil.” Kaleb held his lantern high.

“I cannot say for sure, but it is a place of power accumulated, evil isn’t the only thing that does not wish the eyes of truth set upon it.” Zale fell silent now as his light was completely extinguished.

“I have heard enough, we leave this cave.”

“Agreed,” said Flencer.

The party made way for the exit but as they turned in place, to their horror, the way they entered was no longer there, they were surrounded by the walls laced with dreaded shapes. “It seems this place has other plans,” Gin-rith said, holding his lantern high.

“For crying out loud, for once I’d like to go somewhere that doesn’t want me dead.” Iridia kicked a rock.

“Wouldn’t be an adventure then, eh, lass?” Flencer was rather chipper in tone despite the predicament. “I am sure you were complaining of being bored when we first set forth.”

“I take it all back, I shall spend my days seeking out nothing but mundanity.”

“You have a shield to free after this quest.” Kaleb reminded her.

“Let’s remain on course and find a way out of this cave.” Gin-rith huffed and tapped his staff on the floor a few times out of sheer confusion.

Kaleb knelt and placed his hammer to the side of him, he began to pray to the divine heart, the connection felt like ice through his veins where the artery once pumped warmth through his body. The palace that was the divine heart was shrouded with a frosty mist, Kaleb's eyes froze over and he gasped for air, collapsing out of the commune onto the mossy floor of the cave.

“Kaleb!” Iridia slid to her knees beside him, “What’s wrong?”

“The connection to the divine heart has been severed here, I cannot see the truth.”

Gin-rith approached to help while Flencer kept a wary vigil, he held his crossbow up at shadows that danced fiendishly through the flickering lights of the lantern.

“I prayed for a way to see our freedom, but it was not answered.” Kaleb rose to his feet slowly and coughed up icy spit. “We are vulnerable here, Iridia, we may not heal from wounds suffered.”

Iridia looked at Gin-rith. “This is your forest, You must know of these places?”

“This forest has secrets that go deeper than any mortal has ventured, sometimes they surface only for a twinkle of a star, A thousand eyes could watch for a thousand years and still not see every flicker.”

“Very poetic, but eh, that don’t get us outta ‘ere does it?”

The cavern rumbled and lurched at that moment, sending the party this way and that for a few seconds before it calmed.

“Seems your prayers have been answered.” Gin-rith pointed to a mouth that had opened in the side wall, a predatory maw made of stone and fern, beckoning a fresh meal.

“By who though?” Said Flencer.

Kaleb held up his lantern and walked towards the opening that had unfurled, no hinges or mechanical frameworks gave a clue to the mystery of its inner workings, all the same, a door was a door. He passed into a small tunnel which led into another forest, not of tree and bush, but of fungus. The mushrooms stood taller than three men and the vines hung from the roof of the cave.

“A forest within a forest,” Gin-rith said from Kaleb's shoulder.

Kaleb was able to look over the breadth and width of it. Fireflies, glow bugs and bioluminescent fauna scattered light from the entryway they stood in. Like stars in the night sky, they cast a net towards the visible edge and gave no mind to their presence. They were as a man to a speck of dust landing upon the highest shelf of the darkest room in the loneliest house. “What could this be home to?”

From the centre of the fungal forest, came a roar that carried with it an agony of ages, it was guttural and barbaric, as if all the most brutal moments of an entire people's history could be condensed into a single cry of pain.

Flencer moved up beside Kaleb’s other shoulder. “This is not just a home, it’s a hunting ground.”