Tiria waited for the others to finish making their way to the top. Once Nori climbed over the cliff, her face darkened when she saw the corrupted goblin that Tiria had killed.

"My people are slaves even in death." She looked around at the others on the cliff face. "If we find any other goblins in here, please help me put them to rest."

Nori was irreverent by her very nature, but Tiria had learned during their time together that it wasn't because she didn't care. Sure, the trappings of caring like being nice or spending time with those she cared about was lost on her, but every action that she took was for the betterment of her and her found clan.

In that way, she and Tiria weren't that different.

"Of course," was all Tiria said and that was enough. Nori grunted and then they all entered the forest.

The stone compass pointed almost directly towards what Tiria took as the center. Sunlight attenuated further with each step into the trees. It only took a few steps for that darkness to cling to her like an unwanted embrace.

She shivered at the creepy feeling, but the visibility hadn't dropped as much as she'd expect from the unnatural shadows so she kept going - and almost ran into Nori.

Nori had stopped with her eyes closed, but before Tiria could ask if she was all right. Her eyes shot back open. "Make sure you push the whispers away. If you ignore them, they will wind their way into your thoughts until you can't tell the difference between their voices and yours. If you focus on them too much though... they will consume you."

At Nori's words, Tiria suddenly became aware of a myriad of whispers in her mind. The words they spoke seemed full of meaning that could reveal everything she needed to know, but understanding lay just out of reach. Temptation begged her to listen closer for all the truths that they might provide.

Heeding Nori's advice, she shoved the whispers to a corner of her mind and only kept enough attention on them to assure they weren't drifting closer. It was a difficult balance, but the threat of the forest provided her enough of a distraction that she managed it.

Ahhhh!

Orchid had two of her front legs on top of her head. She clawed at the top of her head, like trying scratch out dozens of fleas that had suddenly appeared. Before Tiria could react, Nori's limbs had lit up with Aether and scooped the Hidden Spider up, rushing her out of the forest.

Tiria looked to Poe and Chum. The latter seemed to have some discomfort, but otherwise was okay. Poe, on the other paw, just looked sad.

"This part of the Child Stage was... not joyful."

"That's an understatement," Nori said, replying to Poe's statement as she returned. "Orchid should be fine, but she won't be able to come with us. I sent her back."

Tiria nodded. If she had her way, she'd send them all back, but with something this important, she couldn't force them not to follow their own heart.

Nori started to take the lead again, but Tiria stopped her and continued forward at the head of their little band. It might not be her place to stop them from coming, but she could take the most risk on herself.

It was her quest after all.

As they moved further into the trees, the darkness still clung about them like moisture after rain, but it didn't actually grow darker. The occasional sunbeam still cut through the canopy to provide illumination on their path.

The whispers in her mind weren't completely cowed and sometimes their voices sounded like another goblin creeping up through the trees or the cry of a strange animal.

Parsing through what was real and what was not would eventually lead to insanity, but she had the strength to continue on a while yet.

With all the distractions, it was a miracle that Tiria noticed the spear launching upward from beneath the forest floor. She had just enough time to lean backwards and avoid its sharp tip from completely skewering her. Instead, it sliced a furrow from her thigh to her shoulder.

Blood gushed out and it was all she could do to stumble backwards.

Three diamond shape creatures burst from where they hid beneath the ground. They were mostly flat with eyes sitting in the center of their shape. The spear that had cut her open wasn't actually a spear at all, but a long sharp tail that had a bonelike claw at its end.

They were stingrays.

The strangest part was that they floated in the air and some of their grey skin sloughed off, revealing thousands of tiny bones beneath it.

"They're undead!" She shouted, but Nori had already infused her limbs with Aether and rocketed past her to engage their new foes. Chum stepped up, hands blazing with light, as he overcharged his domain to stem the flow of life that seeped out of her.

"Thanks," Tiria said as feeling returned to her right side. Nori had already engaged all three, but like the goblin from before, they were insanely fast and it took most of her attention to simply dodge the barrage of strikes from their spear-like tails.

"Creating a funnel!" Tiria yelled out and their practiced teamwork against the demons paid fruit. Using [Waterborn Armory], she flung mace after mace creating two small rivers of watery weapons on either side of Nori.

One of the flying stingrays was pummeled by her attack and forced back away from Nori's back. With only one angle to fight from, her fighting style flourished. She knocked the incoming spears away and grabbed one of the tails by its spongy exterior with a fist she punched through it, tossing its spear-like tip to the side.

Its main weapon destroyed, that stingray flew flat and tried to smother her like a blanket as its shark like teeth on its underside tried to devour her.

Nori was able to beat it back, but Tirira had to race forward and intercept the other two that were looking to take advantage of the opening. A water mace smacked away one of the incoming tails and she tackled the other monster.

Memories of Samba's fighting style drifted up to her, but none of them seemed appropriate against a diamond shape monster. With their speed and strange shape, she instead relied on pure power.

The stingray she tackled bit into her chest, but she could feel Chum already healing any damage that it did. She rolled forward off the stingray and grabbed its tail with both hands as she did. That roll brought her back to her feet, still holding the stingray, which she used like a giant club to slam into a tree.

Rotten flesh exploded off it, leaving only a squirming skeleton behind. Tiria reset her grip as even the flesh of its tail sloughed off and swung again, this time at the last one still engaged with Nori.

Ironically, her [Blunt Weapons] Skill activated, allowing her to tweak her angle of attack at the last second. The skeleton shattered on impact, killing it and deskinning the remaining one.

With just the one left, Nori quickly dispatched it with a series of expert blows.

"What the hell were those?" Chum asked.

"I've seen weirder," Poe said, still uncharacteristically muted. "There was this dandelion once..." He shivered.

Nori who must have known what he was talking about as well didn't elaborate. "These were undead sea creatures. Do you think they were brought in as part of the Monster Surge?"

"And if they were," Tiria added, "were they Undead when they first came here?"

The four of them looked at each other, but none of them had any answers. Tiria took a second to push the whispers back that crawled forward while she was distracted and reminded them all to do the same.

Thankfully, none of them reacted the same way that Orchid had and they were able to continue to push forward.

The hours slipped away as they followed the compass. The constant paranoia from the whispers in their mind was sometimes rewarded with the occasional goblin or demon that appeared, but they were defeated easily.

They stopped after one of these battles to drink and eat. Poe flew down to the ground, but kept looking around them.

"Something feels off," Poe said.

Nori looked around and then nodded. "I know."

That seemed like a grand understatement to Tiria as they were constantly being attacked by eldritch creatures while the forest itself tried to turn them all mad. Poe clarified before she could ask though.

"It doesn't feel like we have the forest's attention. In the Child Stage, every step of the way was bought with the blood of an army of monsters."

"It was the same for us the second time," Nori said. "My goblins were going insane or getting killed every second and it was a mad dash hoping that some of us would survive the grinder."

"It gets worse?" Chum's eyes looked strained from the constant mental battle, but none of them had given up yet.

"It can." Poe's quiet voice didn't do anything to ease Tiria's worries. "Maybe its ill intent is focused elsewhere? Could it be because we're such a smaller group?"

"Maybe," Nori tentatively agreed. "I'll believe that theory if we make it out like this. Are we getting any closer?"

Tiria presented her compass and the glow of its meter had grown. Before the glow had been a soft magical thing, now it practically flickered like an oil lantern revealed to wind.

"Did we get turned around?" Chum asked, pointing to the meter. They had been following its path roughly north, but now its meter pointed almost west of them.

All of them looked through the trees to the west and standing in between two of the trees was a goblin.

The monsters that they'd fought so far had all been twisted in some fashion just like the first one near the cliff. This one barely resembled what it once had been.

Part of its cheek had sloughed off, revealing the bones of its cheek and sharp teeth. The parts of its flesh that was still on its body looked scorched and blackened. All four of its limbs were coiled like a spring just past the elbow and knee. Its flesh undulated like their was something living beneath it.

Surprised, all of them froze, but the goblin did not.

One if its arms shot forward, unwrapping as it did to cross the distance even quicker than the other foes that they'd fought. At the attack, Chum, Tiria, and Poe had popped up, but Nori just continued to stare even as the attack came rocketing towards her.

As fast as she could, Tiria dove towards the attack, hoping to intercept it from the stunned Nori. A ton of Aether brought an enlarged mace into her fist and it was just enough to clip the goblin's claw and save Nori.

The problem was that as soon as her mace touched the goblin's impossible arm. Its skin burst and lightning erupted from the undulating pores of its skin. With her water mace as the perfect medium, the lightning instantly crossed to her and Tiria dropped to the ground twitching.

The Aether that had been poured into its passive defense was enough to overwhelm Tiria's nervous system. If it wasn't for Chum's quick heals, she might have been dead before she had a chance to get back up.

The only blessing to this monster was that its long limb receded back into its coiled state. The worst part was that hundreds of holes started to open in its flesh, exploding with either charred or undead flesh, and lightning popped out of the holes like flying fish before diving back into its flesh.

Tiria's main source of attack would be almost useless.

Mercifully, Nori climbed to her feet and as she stared at the goblin, it stared right back.

"It's Tama," she breathed. "My Subgenitor."