The canyon was brightening as the mid-day sun shone down into it, illuminating the vibrant moss that draped down the canyon walls in long ropes. Higher still, small fairies flitted between woven nests. Occasionally, one would look down upon the elves and hail rude gestures down on them, but little else.

Thu’lain and Raj’ken walked at the head of the group with the four guliks close to him.

“You said they were harmless unless you knew how to deal with them, yeah? So, what? Was that pretty common knowledge?” Raj’ken was interested in the guliks, even if she was still nervous around them.

“No, I dealt with them in Erebus. They have some dangerous habits.”

“Like what?” Raj’ken asked, taking a peek at the gulik immediately next to Thu’lain. The way it waddled as it followed her friend was kind of cute, if you ignored the freaky too-open-eyed stare it gave the rest of the world - and the teeth.

“Hmm, they incite violence.” Thu’lain shrugged.

“Right. . . uh, how could they do that? They’re so tiny.” She looked down at the gulik and met its unsettling gaze as it stared back at her. “Uhm, no offense intended.”

The gulik stared for a moment longer, its gaze flickering to Thu’lain before returning to her. Eventually it spoke with jarring changes in pitch from high to low, “Elf is right. Too small to be danger. Oh, much too weak.” It gave a small toothy grin that made Raj’ken uncomfortable.

“Most of them don’t get larger; some can reach nine feet or higher. But their primary methods don’t work on elves and we can interact with them normally.” Thu’lain picked up a rock and chucked it at the gulik casually. Raj’ken nearly flinched as the rock passed harmlessly through the creature.

“They’re a kind of astral being that can exist on a physical plane.” Thu’lain strode on.

“What he’s not saying, though,” Trat’catha chimed in, “is that they incite violence against all creatures. They prey upon anxieties and paranoia that a sapient possesses and stoke them to the point the host can hardly be compared to their prior self. They’re parasitic and destructive.” He eyed the guliks as they walked.

“If feral, yes.” Thu’lain nodded. “But they can be civil.” He looked back to the guliks and they stared up at him.

“How you know? You speak of much gulik,” the lead creature questioned.

“I’ve known many of your kind.”

They walked deeper into the canyon and the walls opened further, allowing more sunlight to filter down to the floor.

“How long does this canyon go?” Thu’lain looked down to one of the guliks as it waddled behind.

“Not much further.” It shrugged.

“Why are you guys coming with us?” Raj’ken looked over between the guliks and Thu’lain. The guliks looked between each other and then at her and shrugged.

“Why not? Have nothing else to do,” the guliks chortled, as if the answer should have been obvious.

“Thu, are you part gulik? I’m getting a trend with these responses,” Raj’ken sighed, and Thu’lain responded with a confused expression.

“No.” He still looked confused, but there was a hint of amusement on his face.

“Well, it’s a theory. Anyway, what are we gonna do about the harvest? Do you know if there’s anything big enough in the area?” Raj’ken asked, glancing from Thu’lain to Trat’catha.

“There’s always something.”

“Well, I think there is actually a lake somewhere in the area and I’m sure that we can find some of the larger animals there pretty easily.” Trat’catha marched forward with a thoughtful look on his face. “You know, I haven’t been near a lake in ages. Maybe we could do some fishing.” Trat’catha smiled warmly.

“Actually, that sounds kind of nice,” Anar’dea chimed in.

“Are we suddenly not worried about apex? I mean, by all means vent your stress, but I’m not sure a fishing trip to an out of the way lake is the best use of our time,” Tin’lo criticized as he loosened the bandages on his injured arm.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Actually. . . I’ve been thinking. . . and if magical essence is returning, then Anosora should be one of the first places it surges to; it was built on one of the nexus points,” Trat’catha theorized. “And, if it returns there, then we could use enchanted artifacts - like Thu’lain’s dagger - much more freely.”

“Wait, why hasn’t this come up yet? A bunch of super powerful artifacts would have been great,” Raj’ken asked, somewhat confused.

“My dagger is relatively weak in comparison to most artifacts. It draws similar power to your cloaks,” Thu’lain stated, content with his participation in the conversation.

“So other artifacts would use more. So what?” Raj’ken asked frustratedly.

“Not just more, Raj, a lot more,” Trat’catha adopted a lecturing tone as he spoke, “Too much, in fact; you’d have to have consistently massive sources of essence to power even some of the mid-level artifacts - they weren’t made to be efficient like the cloaks. But then you also run into the issue that magical energies bleed off at a disproportionately higher rate the larger and more potent the artifact gets. It’s a bit like how heat transfers: an area of high heat disperses more quickly the colder the surrounding area around it is. A larger, more powerful artifact has more area that heat can escape from, making them impractical to use.”

“They were created so we could send out hunting parties to clear out the apex little by little. Some were certainly used and lost in battle, but honestly most were still being hoarded in caches spread throughout the kingdom for our forces to re-arm and clear key areas without having to carry all their gear.”

“The plan and the kingdom fell because magical essence faded to depletion before we enacted our plan to exterminate the apex. It was more our hubris that led to our fall than anything; we were so safe behind our walls, even when fighting the eclipse, that we thought we could take our time building caches of powerful artifacts instead of going all out with the ones we had.” Trat’catha took a breath.

“But I know where a few of those caches are, and I happen to know one that is near a lake. Not only that, it’s in this region. If I could find the pass, I could get us there with my eyes closed. We could fell three trees in one swing,” Trat’catha cheerfully finished his lecture and looked around to see the mixed expressions on his fellows' faces.

“Sounds fine to me.”

“So, I can have a cool magic weapon like Thu’lain?” Anar’dea glanced at Raj’ken and they shared an unspoken thought before they both smiled and spoke in unison, “I’m in!”

“Hmm, it’s theoretically sound that Anosora would have magic return there first. . . The potential gains are immense if we can retrieve a few artifacts, and if we arrive to find Anosora possessing magical energies once more. . . I suppose, if we make the trip, it wouldn’t be egregiously risky to take a fishing detour and gather new supplies. . .” Tin’lo murmured to himself, battling his caution with the possibilities. He had to admit taking some time to rest would be nice, since they’d been on the run for days.

It could, on the other hand, turn into another fiasc-

“It’ll be fun! We’ll have a time!” Tu’lar patted Tin’lo’s back, knocking him out of his thoughts and almost bowling him over. Tin’lo gave Tu’lar an irritated look, but Tu’lar’s huge grin and eager eyes were unaffected.

“Alright, fine. We go. I still don’t think it’s the greatest idea,” Tin’lo sighed and tried to hide the small smile on his face.

“Yes!” Trat’catha cried and looked to the guliks “You wouldn’t happen to know of any landmarks nearby, would you?” He was optimistic that they’d be able to point him in the right direction, or at least a start.

“Nooope! Don’t pay attention to rocks!” The gulik stated proudly and puffed up its chest. Trat’catha felt a little bit of excitement and optimism die in him that moment, but was not deterred.

“Very well, I will just need high ground when we come out of here.” He nodded and began trying to recall the specific gear he’d had stored in the cache.

It wasn’t long until the canyon ended as suddenly as it had started. The group gazed out into a sparse forest with trees that were tall and thin. The canopy was even sparser than the forest below and allowed plenty of dappled sunlight to reach the forest floor, which was, in turn, coated in soft moss. As they walked forward, they found their steps to be almost completely silent with little to no effort.

“Looks like we’re groundlings for the time being,” Thu’lain mused as he walked forward, noting the trees were far too small to bear any of their weight.

“Well, Trat, looks like you’re not getting that high ground anytime soon,” Raj’ken suggested.

They marched forward and kept an eye on their surroundings, Trat’catha eagerly seeking a gap through the trees where he could see nearby hills or perhaps a tree thick enough to climb.

“It looks like we haven’t quite reached the foothills, but this species of tree doesn’t grow on the other side of the plateau, so we definitely are on the right side. If we head east, we’ll find the pass and the trail, I’m sure of it.” Trat’catha took the lead with Thu’lain and started to guide them eastward. The journey remained calm into the evening and the sun began its descent through the sky.

Something’s wrong here.

Thu’lain stopped abruptly and held up his hand to signal the others to stop. He then crept forward cautiously as Trat’catha passed the signal on to the others and knelt down to stay out of sight. The guliks hid in any nearby foliage as Thu’lain went forward.

Thu’lain observed the area ahead of him, trying to figure out what had alarmed him; there were still birdsongs and no tracks, no strange smells, and no sense of being watched. The trees were normal, though some of them were tilted.

No, there’s a whole line of trees tilted.

His gaze focused on the line of trees ahead and he recognized the damage as something large having gone through the area and shoved the trees as it passed; it appeared to have moved from south to north. He brought himself to the path and looked up and down the trail, noticing the width was at least five meters across, and any tree that was within that path was toppled or snapped completely, leaving only the ones on the edge leaning over.

“You can come over,” Thu’lain called to the group as he kept searching for any clues. He heard Trat’catha approach first and enter the clearing.

“This is worrisome. Any idea what caused it?” Trat’catha studied the way the trees were felled before turning his gaze north and south. “I think this came from the pass; there’s no other way through the plateau that would have been large enough for this.”

I have an idea, but I don’t like it.

Thu’lain remained silent as he dug through the torn foliage, searching for a scale or tuft of fur that may have torn free from whatever trampled the forest. He lifted a branch and grimaced at the sticky black tar-like material that dripped from the branch.

“What is it?” Trat’catha gulped, taking a step closer, but not willing to touch it. Thu’lain looked at Anar’dea and gestured to the viscous material.

“Look familiar?”

“Huh? No, it just looks. . .” Anar’dea squinted at the dripping blackness before her eyes shot open in shock. “Seriously? Why is it going north still?”

Trat’catha furrowed his brows in confusion before querying, “Care to share with the rest of us?”

“I wanted a second opinion. It looks like Uch’l’thein kept going north after it passed us; it made its way through the pass and didn’t stop.” Thu’lain stood back up and dropped the branch to the ground.

“Why would it do that? That doesn’t make sense,” Trat’catha asked worriedly. He paced back and forth while considering their options.

“It’s too much of a coincidence. I think it's heading to Anosora,” Thu’lain concluded.

“We need to get to that cache. Fast,” Anar’dea urged, and the tense group picked up their pace.