Nick awoke to the murky violet glow of predawn. He finished the rest of his frog meat, then ate a flower petal to wash the taste out of his mouth, ready to resume his journey as soon as the sky was bright enough to reveal the path ahead.

He wanted to cover as much ground as possible today. To reach the base of the tower before too many people went inside, triggering one of the deadly global events mentioned in the quest’s description.

Before climbing down from the watchtower, he set his gaze upon his objective, the looming profile of Darkstone Tower along the northern horizon, jutting up from the center of the bog like a titan’s finger. It stretched up to breathtaking heights, a pillar of midnight bridging the heavens above and earth below.

Nick wondered about the man named Rizzen, the story of why he had built such an incredible structure. Perhaps he would discover some of the answers once he set foot inside and began to climb.

By the time that the sun crested the rim of the crater containing the bog, bringing color back to the world, he was well on his way. After hiking for another few miles, he realized that he was entering a different biome, passing through a region where the rivers and pools were even more prevalent than the rest of the marsh. He decided to call the area the lakelands, a swampy terrain studded by patches of solid land, forming a string of islands connected to one another by narrow fingers of dry earth.

The lakelands continued to the east and west for as far as his eyes could see, so his best bet was to cross straight through the middle. He could see low hills covered with trees when he took out his spyglass and scanned the horizon. Hopefully, he could reach the far side sometime around noon.

It would be an understatement to say that Nick wasn’t thrilled to be walking so close to the water’s edge. It made him deeply uneasy to remain in proximity to terrain that he couldn’t clearly perceive. The water’s mirrored surfaces were impossible to see through unless you were standing at just the right angle.

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After taking a short break to catch his breath and consider his options, Nick decided that he didn’t have a choice. There wasn’t a way to avoid the wetlands unless he wanted to walk for hours to circumvent the biome. Time that he simply didn’t have.

He began weaving his way between the ponds and lakes, on guard against attack from above and below. As he crossed an endless series of land bridges, he watched the local wildlife as closely as he could. He was hoping to learn more about the region’s dangers by studying their behavior, rather than stumbling into trouble headfirst.

Nick soon came to view the great herons and otters as good luck charms. He doubted that any dangerous predators were lurking below the water where the beasts were moving along the surface. He picked a path that kept him near the nonaggressive critters as often as he could.

It made him wonder what had happened to Bandit and the lemur tribe he had befriended back on the Searing Isle. He hoped that he would see them again one day, although he had no idea what the odds of such an encounter were.

After stopping on an island that was bigger than the rest, he decided to eat an early lunch. He took out some of the food from Earth he had taken from the safe room along with a few of the pumpkin-colored flowers he had found.

When he was finished, Nick continued making his way across the open expanse of ponds and lakes. He was glad not to have run into anything nasty so far. It was a welcome break from his usual routine. He hoped that his luck would endure until he crossed over to the far side of the biome sometime within the next couple of hours.

Not long after, he ran into his first true obstacle, when the branching paths in front of him ran along the water’s edge for long stretches at a time. After a bit of consideration, he picked the wider footpath. If he was forced into a fight, he would have more room to maneuver.

The trail led him around the perimeter of a dense growth of bushes that dominated the land bridge he was crossing. The hearty shrubs were coated in wicked black thorns, covering the plants’ bright purple leaves, which were as broad as both of Nick’s hands put together.

The overgrowth would have been impenetrable if not for the trail, which must have been broken by creatures a great deal bigger and tougher than himself.