To his relief, Nick made excellent time crossing the marshlands, hiking all day without running into any hostile beasts or other significant setbacks. His hastened progress was due in part to his new strategy, which helped him to identify potential shelters from further out, and in part because the myriad beasts that called the bog home were unusually subdued.

Many were still recovering from the night of the blood moon. From the horror invoked by being hunted by the chittering swarm. As a result, he didn’t have to go out of his way to avoid anything dangerous all day, and the patches of blackmist he came across were thin enough to quickly pass him by.

As evening drew near and his shadow grew long, Nick came across the road that he had first spotted from the rim of the crater, a crumbling length of white stone winding its way across the bog. After making sure that nothing hostile was prowling nearby, he camped for the night in what appeared to be some manner of ruined waystation that still had most of its walls.

Nick was back on the marsh bright and early the next morning. Now that he was closer to the tower and in sight of a major landmark, his odds of running into some of the other individuals who had volunteered for this quest were growing by the footfall.

The prospect of no longer being alone was a soothing balm to his frazzled nerves and poignant loneliness, putting a spring in his step and a smile on his face. With any luck, he could join up with some competent fighters on the way to the tower. People who could watch his back and round out his strategic options during the next event, which he suspected would be even more terrible than the last.

He began following the road from a distance, keeping an eye out for footprints, smoke from cookfires, or other signs that people were somewhere nearby. He decided to avoid walking along the intact portions of the highway unless there was no other choice. While doing so would increase Nick’s chances of running into other volunteers, any creature smart enough to come to the same conclusion could use the broken stretches of cobblestone to set an easy ambush.

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Along the way, he drove off any predators that were lurking along the roadside, doing his part to ensure that as many of his people as possible survived the dangers of the marsh. So far, he hadn’t run into anything more promising than a few abandoned campsites, but at least some of them were fresh. Nick had high hopes that he would meet their makers sooner rather than later.

Three hours later, as the planet’s coppery sun rose high overhead, he finally saw something interesting peeking through a break in the overgrowth. He crouched down low on spotting movement along one of the intact stretches of roadway, having caught sight of a pair of shapes trying to conceal themselves behind a massive pile of debris.

After pulling out his spyglass to take a closer look, he breathed out a long sigh of relief. Because at last, Nick had caught up to others of his kind. Before long, the crouching figures revealed themselves to be two men who were watching the road along the southern approach, the way that other people would be walking as they headed for the tower.

Something in their posture made him decide to observe the situation for a bit longer instead of approaching right away. The men appeared anxious but didn’t seem overly afraid. Like they were in the middle of dealing with a stressful situation, but not caught in a crisis or some other emergency.

Nick couldn’t blame them for being nervous. Being out in this wild and dangerous land was more than enough reason to be on edge, although their attempts at stealth were clumsy and unlikely to protect them from prowling beasts.

If they’re in trouble, I’ll try to help them out, Nick decided. They won’t last long out here if they’re that bad at hiding. I should at least be able to give them some pointers on how to reduce their profiles. They need to stop drawing attention to themselves by moving more than they have to.

Still feeling a need for caution, at least until he knew what kind of situation he was walking into, Nick crept a bit closer, easily evading the men’s notice even though he was approaching from the direction they were looking.