The room feels dimmer than it did a few minutes ago. The inferno above has been slowly travelling upwards by the minute. We stand around the carcass of a giant spider; freshly slain, and already reeking of rotting bile and guts. Elara stares up at the summit with the haft of her spear still poking out like a flag atop a princess's tower.
“Hmm... I wonder what this thing ate to grow so big.” Gareth begins the post-battle dialogue.
I open my mouth to reply but am swiftly cut off by Elara.
“Don’t... answer. It’s a thing he does.” She looks annoyed. “He’s got a soft spot for weird creatures. Especially giant... things.”
Gareth walks around the corpse, inspecting every nook and cranny as Elara begins to climb up using the thicker follicles on its body. I carefully pet Melo, who seems to have calmed down yet is clearly still wary of the dead creature.
“I am surprised we didn’t get ambushed by hundreds of it’s off-springs.” Gareth wonders aloud.
“Well it can’t be a mother if there’s no father after all.” Elara answers from her precarious position.
“Some species of spiders can reproduce asexually.” He chimes back.
“And which species have twelve eyes?”
“Good point.”
The scene plays out quite naturally. I assume this is just how it is when they aren’t running for their lives. I’m hesitant to break into the conversation, but my curiosity gets the better of me.
“Have you fought against giant spiders before?” I ask.
“Giant? Yes-Hmph! But compared to those... this is a colossus.“ She replies. Her voice strained from trying to reach for a large clump of hair off the side.
“The largest we’ve ever reported was about half my height.” Gareth explains, gauging the height of the would-be giant with his hand at hip level. The slosh and squelch of his boots send a jolt along my spine as he strides casually into the puddle of “blood”.
“How did you know that this was a female?” I pick a question out of the dozen racing through my mind.
“I didn’t. The females in most species tend to be larger than their male counter-part. You could say it was more of a hopeful comment than an observation.” He replies, without so much as looking away from the carcass.
“Shouldn’t you tend your wound? Maybe you’ve been poisoned.” I ask. In hindsight, this should’ve been the first question I’d asked.
“Don’t worry. The size of its fangs are relatively small compared to the head so it’s probably not venomous. Also, claws do not inject, nor are they usually coated in venom.”
I decide to remain silent. The gap between the knowledge gained from hearing stories and actually facing creatures in battle is too embarrassing.
“The spear is stuck firmly in it. Gareth! Can you give me a hand?” Elara’s voice comes down from above. Her tone is cold and stoic. I guess it takes a while for them to get out of ‘battle-mode’.
He ascends the body just as she had. Taking a closer look at the monster’s head, I notice something odd about its eyes. The two eyes at the top of the columns are different from the rest. It was hard to make out from afar, but they seem to jut out a few inches from its face. I reach out and touch it to find the texture dry and cold, almost like a smooth rock or crystal unlike the rest which clearly have the moist shine of fluid inside them.
“Hey Gareth!” I shout.
“Yes?”
“If not twelve, are there any spiders that have ten eyes?”
I hear a combined grunt followed by the slight tremor of the carcass. They must’ve freed the spear.
“No, just eight. Of course it can vary. I’ve even met some that had an odd amount, but it is always lower. Not higher.”
Melo flies off my satchel and up to my companions.
The tips of my fingers feel cool upon touching the “eye” and the temperature continues to slowly drop as if it were siphoning my energy right out of me, reminding me that I am completely out of Spirit. However my body feels decent and without fatigue, a stark difference from my previous experience, as well as the ageless warning for all mages. Truly the sign of a budding bad habit. I remove my hand from the crystal, a little shaken but unaffected, apart from a slight tightness in my chest.
“Alright, that should be enough for now. Let us take a look around the chamber for a way out.” Gareth says as he slides down the side of the body to the ground.
“Eww... Melo don’t eat that! I can’t watch this!” Elara shouts as she flings herself off the side, with Gareth once again catching her before she hits the ground. He seems to avoid using his injured arm. I can barely hear it, but Melo seems to be nibbling on the spider’s organs.
We decide to split up, with Gareth covering one half and Elara, and I taking the other. She grabs the torch she had wedged in between a crack on a platform. My inability to conjure even a Light spell makes me feel truly useless for the first time.
It takes a while to cover all the corners of the room, but eventually we regroup to confirm that the room is indeed empty. With Gareth having come across the only new discovery. A flight of stairs leading up in to the darkness.
The staircase is fairly wide. The frame is similar to the other door we had entered from, consisting of large, thick rocks however this one had sigils carved all along them.
“It seems to be from the same language as the ones we found earlier.” I exclaim. “I think I recognize a few individual sigils, but the groupings are different.”
Gareth hands me his torch as he pulls out the cloth and coal from his bag. He proceeds to write down as much of it as he can. The “manuscript” is rough and messy, but I doubt any of us are dying to complain about it.
“I think I know which sect this belongs to.” He says as he raises his hand to point at one grouping of sigils on the stone. “I’ve seen this “word” before. It means ‘heal’ in the language of the Void sect. I do not remember the name of the language at the moment. The Captain can probably figure it out for us once we get back.”
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one feeling hopeful about making it back to town.
Elara, who had been too impatient to sit still, comes back down from further up the stairway quite excited.
“I think this is the way out! The top of the stairwell is covered by a solid trapdoor but I can make out faint bits of light on the other side.”
We walk up together to find a fairly old wooden hatch standing between us and freedom. Small cracks are noticeable as strands of light can be seen behind them at certain angles. Gareth pushes up a shoulder on the left end of the door.
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“Alright, Elara go up one step on that end and we push on three. One... two... THREE!”
A satisfying creak of the hinges echo down the stairs. The sound of rustling leaves and falling stones can be heard on the other side of the hatch as tiny pebbles pour down into the now widening exit. My two companions take a few steps up to the lip of the opening as a final heave of the door pushes it fully open. The beams of light shine timidly through a screen of vines and foliage in front of us.
“I think I know where we are. Although, I wouldn’t mind being wrong.” Gareth says.
Elara turns back to offer their hands out to me, pulling me up the ledge to a thicket of vines covering most of the sunlight. Gareth walks up to it and sneaks a peak through the tangled leaves.
“Close your eyes girls, it will be bright.” He says as he push the foliage aside.
The darkness of my closed eyes turn a slight red hue as the warmth of the afternoon sun ripples across my skin. I open my eyes to see a vast valley of trees spread out in front of us. The forest is tall and endless, with the receding hills seemingly beckoning us towards the horizon. I would say that the forest is much like any other apart from one obvious detail.
Scattered around the usual green are sporadic bundles of pink leaves. These puddles of colour seem to grow more frequent as it goes deeper into the valley and along the hills, with the horizon being completely shrouded in a sort of soft blush pink. The view is beautiful however there is an air of eeriness around us.
“This is not good. I did not realize that we’d gotten so deep into the mountains.” Gareth exclaims.
“Is this-” I hesitate to ask but Elara confirms my suspicion.
“The Whispering Woods. We are on the other side of the mountain range.”
Gareth takes a deep breath and takes a moment to think before speaking again.
“Alright, not to worry. We are still surrounded by green foliage, so we must be only at the cusp of the forest. Honestly, I am surprised that there is such a large area of uhm... ‘normal’ forest, before the Woods. The one good thing about the Whispering Woods is that it is easy to walk the other way.” He says.
Melo jumps off my bag and flies up to a sunlit branch. It unfolds its wings against the light and shakes its body, enjoying a quick bath in the sun. A joyous chirp fill the air as I finally realize what I’ve been feeling.
“Is it just me or is it... too quiet?” I ask. Gareth looks at Elara as if signalling her to answer.
“I think it’s too early for-” Her answer is cut off by a disapproving grunt from Gareth. She closes her eyes and scrunches up her frow, ruminating heavily in her mind before she begins again.
“Alright, but if anything happens, you’ll have to make the report to the Village Elder.” She shoots an annoyed look at him and continues, “So the Woods is not a regular forest... obviously. Of course anything that has to do with the Edge of the World is not ‘normal’, but since this is the last bastion before reaching it, the Whispering Woods has; probably, the most mysterious properties out of any place on earth.”
Elara goes on a fairly long rant about the limited information known about the Woods. I spent half the time listening to her diligently and the other half gazing over the silent valley. Gareth remained silent and attentive to her lecture as well. All in all I can summarize them into a handful of points.
1. The Whispering Woods consists of only a single species of tree with white bark and pink foliage. There are no other shrubs, herbs or grass in the area proper.
2. There are no water bodies, nor does it rain inside the Woods.
3. There are no animals nor insects. Monsters do not roam the forest either.
4. The various phenomenon are often attributed to stories of the Edge of the World being linked to either the Land of the Dead or some other supernatural realm.
5. The link to the Land of the Dead is said to cause spirits to manifest and talk to unwary trespassers, which is where the name comes from.
6. Magic users have their Spirit slowly sucked out of their body while they are in the Woods which leads to extreme fatigue and eventually, death. While non-magic influenced people feel a burst of energy that often result in mania and hysteria. This phenomenon gradually increases as you get deeper into the Woods.
7. Information about the Woods are kept secret in order to discourage adventurers from venturing in. While it is conveyed as being a well-meaning protocol, the result is that anyone venturing unprepared into the Woods is almost sure to succumb to either these or one of its many other undocumented oddities.
“... The trees are said to be an amalgamation of different classifications. The bark most resembling a Maple tree, but unlike the usual deciduous tree, the roots do not spread out into the soil; instead, they shoot straight down in a thick column, suggesting a structural, rather than nutritional function. You would think the pink parts are flowers but actually they are leaves which-”
“Alright! I think she’s gotten the important information. Thank you Elara.” Gareth halts the parade of knowledge. Her eyes widens to a look of slight embarrassment, as she seems to realize how far she had trailed off. Apparently they are both obsessed with fantastical discoveries. One flora, and the other fauna. They truly are two sides of the same coin.
The soft flutter of wings fills the air as Melo gracefully circles around the canopy.
“Thank you Elara, I actually thought that was very interesting.” I try to console her. “And you’ve helped me figure out the reason for this uneasiness I’ve been feeling. I’ve never been in a soundless forest before.”
Looking up at Melo float slowly through the air, I remark, “The lack of living beings is one thing, but also... there is no wind.”
They look at me in confusion. I see Elara’s gaze fall towards the long locks of hair hanging stagnant against my arms and shoulder.
“Hmm...” Gareth mulls it over for a moment. “I see. I’ll put this down in the report. Lets just say that Elara made a casual observation.”
Elara stares silently, most likely combing through all the information in her head. Melo finally flies down and sits atop her bag, chirping at me. It seems to be more chattier than ever.
“That is enough discussion for now. Let us make our way up this hill and scout our way back. If we are lucky, it might only be a few hours to Stren.” Gareth says.
He shuts the drapery of vines behind us, hiding the hatch we’d come out of. Commencing the trek uphill, I remain hopeful to see signs of a path back to town. Melo has returned to the higher branches, leaping excitedly from one to the next. The forest is fairly open, with the trees spaced far enough to provide a view of what lies ahead, and what does lie ahead was a subject of our previous conversation; white bark, and pink leaves.