I don’t think any of us got even half as much rest as we’d have liked to. The ground was almost frigid beneath us, yet the air was hot and humid. Take into account that there’s thirteen of us, fifteen including Hound and Magpie, all crammed into a space that’s about the size of an average bathroom, and with most of us wearing cloaks and heavy gear… yeah. I don’t need to describe the smell that permeated that dugout.
Despite the limited space and the smell, most of us had managed to get comfortable enough to get some sleep. A deep enough sleep that none of us wanted to wake up when the Chief decided that we’d be leaving before or just after dawn that day.
“Honestly. You’d think with how much complaining there was last night, you’d all be climbing out of here as soon as possible to get back home to a comfortable bed.” The Chief sighs, standing by the outpost’s entrance.
“That’s cos it took all damn night to get comfortable enough for some shut-eye…” Johnny grumbles, stretching his legs.
“Come on you two. Time to get moving.” Rann pats Arshak’s shoulder, who groans and turns away, huddled up against his twin sister.
The Chief, Rann, Rob, Einar, Griffin, and I had all gotten up without much fuss, and John, Arshak and Arshiya were getting up with some fuss. Arezza, Mole, and Rabbit, though…
Were all snuggled together in a corner, the two children resting either side of Arezza with her wings wrapped around them as they all dozed peacefully. It’s so precious and cute that I couldn’t bring myself to disturb them.
The Chief, however, has places to be, and has no issue rousing them from their slumber.
“It’s already past dawn, Arezza. We need to get moving.” She says in a slightly softer tone, kneeling down in front of them. Arezza just groans and just gets herself more comfy, much to the Chief’s annoyance, but at least Mole and Rabbit start to stir.
“Her Majesty has… never been a morning person.” Griffin tries to explain, which does little to abate the Chief’s frustrations.
“Neither am I. That doesn’t mean I’m not capable of waking up early every day, as is expected of my role as the Chief of Haven.” The Chief shoots back, glaring at Griffin over her shoulder.
Rabbit sits up, rubbing her eyes and turning to rock Arezza gently.
“Your Majesty, we’re going to see the waterfall today… We’re going on an adventure to Haven…” Rabbit mumbles, as Arezza finally sits up and blinks tiredly.
“Mhh… Is it morning already…” She groans, still half-asleep.
“Yes, it is. Meaning it’s past time we got moving.” The Chief huffs, standing up in front of Arezza and crossing her arms.
“Hmm…?” Arezza blinks, looking up at the Chief. She glances around the room at everyone, before realising where she is and what’s going on. “E-eh?! Right! We were going to Haven today! Right!”
Arezza springs to her feet, helping get Rabbit and Mole moving as she quickly gathers her things to be ready to set off for Haven, and soon enough, we’re all packed up and ready to move.
“From here, we’ll head west until we reach the edge of the Ghostwood, then follow along its border south until we reach the Seeping Wound, then further south ‘til we reach the crossroads. We follow along the road there for the rest of the day, and we should reach Haven before sundown. Don’t talk unless needed until we reach the Wound. Any questions?” Rann asks, laying out our travel plan for the day.
“What do you mean by ‘the Ghostwoods’?” Arezza asks, frowning in concern.
“You’ll know it when you see it, your Majesty.” Griffin pats Arezza on her shoulder.
That saying applies to pretty much the entirety of the Abyss. You hear some horrible name like “the Seeping Wound”, or the “Stonefields”, or the “Ghostwood”, and you ask what it is, and you’re just told “You’ll know it when you see it.”
Which, yeah, has turned out true every time it happened. We’ll know the Ghostwood when we see it.
After Arezza gave goodbye hugs to Magpie and a begrudging Hound, we were off.
We moved west across the Abyss for most of the morning, keeping conversation to a minimum while we were still close to Dead Man’s Dream, the centre of the Abyss. This is my fifth time crossing the Abyss, and my third time returning to Haven if you include the first time I was, er… kidnapped and brought here as a prisoner. Who knows how many more times I’ll be traversing the wilds beyond Haven in this new life, but given I’m more or less an official part of the Expedition Team now, I’ll just have to get used to it.
Step by step, traipsing through the mud, always watching your step and having to stop every now and then to scrape the mud off your boots before it hardens in the hot, dry air. A reverse of the problems we had when we were trying to get some sleep last night. In a way, I’m used to the daily problems of living in the Abyss, yet despite the fact that I’ve been here for four… maybe even five months by now, I can’t get used to living here. No one can. Just as you think you’ve got a handle on things and you’re used to how things are, the weather changes, the temperature drops or rises, the humidity goes up and down. It’s happened enough times that I’m growing more and more convinced that, in some way, the Abyss itself is alive. Alive enough to screw with you and make sure you never get too comfortable or used to things for its liking.
Complaining about it won’t change anything, though. The only thing that will, is escaping this place as the Chief plans to. We’ve all but secured the help of one other faction already, another step towards her goal. There was one thing we learned during our trip to the Wolf Pups that may change her plans, though.
The “heartbeat” of the Abyss. Whatever its source may be.
It might not change things, though. If the Abyss has a ‘heart’, what does that mean? It might be sentient in some way in its capacity to ensure things are consistently awful, but is it alive? If it is, can it be killed? Would killing it even do anything?
An arm thrust out in front of me disrupts my train of thought.
“I wouldn’t take a step closer, Marina.” Rann comments, staring at what lays before us.
The red, muddy earth of the Abyss suddenly gives way to a grey, cracked carpet of sand. Ghost-white trunks erupt from the ground, featureless and smooth, crowned with twisted branches that reach toward the bleak sky like grasping hands, their skeletal fingers adorned with thin grey leaves, frozen in their futile effort to touch the clouds above.
There’s nothing else of note. Grey and dry soil riven with cracks, ghost white trees, and deathly still air.
“The Ghostwood.” I comment. “You didn’t leave anything out when you described it, Johnny.”
“Told ya, Feathers.” Johnny shrugs, shifting uncomfortably as he looks into the lifeless forest.
“It’s certainly… You’d certainly know it when you see it, now that I look upon it…” Arezza says, taking one step closer.
A visible chill runs down her spine, making her shudder on the spot and take several hurried steps back, panting.
“W-what in Anisphia’s name was that?! I didn’t even step on the grey soil…” She says between laboured breaths, as Griffin hurries over to calm her.
“That’s why we don’t enter the Ghostwood. Sucks the life right out of you. We’ve reached the edge of it, now we head south.” Rann says, turning south to lead us on.
We trekked south, keeping within eyesight of the Ghostwood while avoiding veering too close to it, but even just being within eyesight of it is unnerving. On my left, I can hear the distant crackling of fire, the occasional groan of wood, the rustle of leaves, and the distant howl of beasts; the odd, but ‘natural’ sounds of the Abyss. On my right… nothing. No wind, no noise, no movement, no life. It’s debatable if even the trees are alive. They could just be the petrified remains of what was once just another forest part of the Abyss, until something happened to them. Whatever that something could be, though, I’d have no idea whatsoever.
“So… Rann?” I speak up, moving up to walk beside Rann.
“We’re not there yet.” He says back.
“I know, I was just going to ask how big the Ghostwood is, and how far it is until we reach the Seeping Wound.”
“The Wound runs along the western edge of the Ghostwood. We’ll reach it soon enough.” He says, glancing across at the Ghostwood through the trees.
“How much of the Abyss have you seen for yourself…?”
“Everything west of Dead Man’s I’ve trekked over many times. The east of the Abyss, though…” He trails off, pondering for a moment. “The east is a different story.”
“The east is where most people in the Abyss live. The water is cleaner, and there’s less predatory beasts. It’s less inhospitable than the west.” Griffin adds, walking behind Rann and I with Arezza.
“Less beasts, sure, but the people take their place as predators. Most in the east are nomads, besides the Keepsguard. They have to keep moving so the Breakers and whatever other brigands have ended up down here don’t find them. Might makes right, over there. Strength is the only thing that matters.” Rann clarifies. He’s more than familiar with how things work outside Haven’s walls.
“Breaker filth…” Griffin growls. “A dozen of the Wolf Pups were orphaned or abandoned by the Breakers. They capture or kill the adults, and leave the kids to die on their own. They scared some of the kids so bad they’ve never even talked…”
“Where was I found in the Abyss, Griffin? I remember feeling like I was almost halfway over flying across it before I fell.” Arezza asks.
“West of Dead Man’s Dream, Your Majesty.” Griffin immediately shifts tone to a steady, respectful voice when speaking to Arezza. “Quite close to the Hollows, actually. You’re lucky you didn’t land inside the Hollows, else Wolf may not have found you.”
Rann glances back over his shoulder at Griffin.
“Wolf.” He says, getting Griffin’s attention.
“What about him?” Griffin responds.
“You said he set off to find a way out of the Abyss, and you haven’t heard from him since. What direction did he go when he left?” Rann asks, keeping his eyes forward.
“... East.” Griffin answers, after a long pause.
“East…? Weren’t you just saying that the east is the more dangerous side of the Abyss?” Arezza says, looking between Griffin and Rann in concern.
“I’m sure Wolf is more than capable of keeping himself safe. I just wonder what he was looking for in the east.” Rann says.
“If you’re so familiar with the Abyss, then you know what he was looking for.” Griffin says, tension in his voice.
“Ah. The Gauntlet.” Rann nods.
“The what? What did you just say, Rann?” The Chief overhears, moving up to the front of the group and standing in front of Rann, bringing us to a halt.
“It’s nothing but a rumour, Chief. Not worth worrying over. It doesn’t change anything in regard to your plan to get us out of here.” He shrugs, but the Chief keeps pressing him for answers.
“You said ‘The Gauntlet’. I’ve never heard of it before. Is it a way out of the Abyss?” The Chief pushes.
“Mia…” Rann sighs.
“You will call me Chief, or Chief Lichtrufer, in the presence of others, Rann.” The Chief narrows her eyes, growing frustrated.
“It doesn’t change anything. Don’t worry about it.” Rann says, trying to fend her off.
“You’re still not giving me an answer, Rann.” She growls, refusing to let up.
“It’s the rumoured pathway out of the Abyss. It doesn’t exist, Chief.” Einar speaks up from the back of the group, as everyone turns to look at him.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“And how do you know that, Einar?” The Chief crosses her arms, glaring at him.
“The previous Chief was obsessed with finding it. Spent years with him looking for it. It doesn’t exist.” Einar answers.
“Is that why he spent so long away from Haven? Why am I only learning this now? Why didn’t either of you two tell me?” The Chief looks between Rann and Einar, unhappy with how they’ve withheld this from her.
“Only a few of us knew what he was looking for. He kept it secret so as not to get people’s hopes up. He spent most of his life looking for it, and it was during one of those hopeless expeditions he caught the sickness that killed him. He didn’t want you to spend all your life chasing the rumour that took his life.” Rann finally gives her the straight answer.
The Chief is speechless at this revelation. Arezza, however, now has questions of her own.
“So… You’re saying Wolf is looking for something that doesn’t exist?” She asks, growing more concerned over what may have happened to the man that saved her life.
“It might exist, Your Majesty. Wolf knew that people had escaped the Abyss before. They must have gotten out somehow. That isn’t false, right?” Griffin turns to Rann for confirmation.
“According to the books, yes. People have gotten out. No story of them ever described how they escaped, and none have ever mentioned anything about this so-called Gauntlet.” Rann nods.
“Because the Gauntlet doesn’t exist.” Einar says, raising his voice slightly. “Anyone still looking for it is a fool.”
“I will not stand by as you besmirch Wolf’s name!” Griffin growls, turning and drawing his blade. “Take that back, before I take your eye!”
“Griffin.” Arezza says calmly, resting her hand on Griffin’s elbow.
“Y-your Majesty…?” He says, lowering his weapon.
“It’s okay, Griffin. I know.” She manages to smile, but it doesn’t hide the pain in her eyes. This has been on her mind for a while.
Griffin freezes. Even hidden by his mask, you can see the guilt on his face. Arezza sighs softly to herself, as Rabbit comes up to hug her.
“Your Majesty…? Are you okay…?” She asks, worried.
“You’ve known for a while, haven’t you.” The Chief states, matter-of-factly.
“Y-your Majesty… I…” Griffin stutters, struggling to get his words out.
“It’s okay, Griffin. It’s been so long that, a while ago, I quietly accepted the fact that Wolf was never going to come back. Or, rather…” Arezza sighs quietly, taking a moment to collect herself. “He never left in the first place, did he?”
Griffin has nothing to say in his defence. The lie has been found out. He tries to speak, but by now, his voice has failed him completely.
“According to Bear, Wolf died shortly after he brought you back to the Wolf Pups, and all the other adults were either dead or captured. I’m… sorry you’re only learning this now.” The Chief answers in Griffin’s place.
“It’s alright. I had… Well, I’d quietly accepted the fact that this was fate that befell them. Griffin…” Arezza walks up to Griffin, gently taking his hands in her own. “I know you were only doing what you thought was best for me. Please don’t be harsh on yourself.”
Griffin nods quietly, his mask muffling the sound of his sniffling.
“You’ve held hands and made up. We’re moving now. You can have a hot meal in the tavern and talk all you want once we get back.” Rann says, beckoning us to start moving again.
“Rann…” The Chief frowns, glancing across at Arezza and Griffin still holding hands.
“It’s alright.” Griffin clears his voice, straightening his posture. “We should get moving. I’d prefer it if we reached Haven before sundown.”
Not long after this, we rounded the southeastern fringe of the Ghostwood, following along its southern border until we reached the tell-tale, bloody red stream, lazily meandering downhill from the south.
“The Seeping Wound, I presume…” Arezza muses, gazing up and down the stream’s path.
“If you’ve got a better name.” Rann says, taking off his pack and rubbing his shoulder. “I’m all ears.”
“I can’t fault it for being misleading.” Arezza concedes.
“We shouldn’t stop here long.” The Chief says, scanning the treeline to our south.
“Just give us a few minutes, Chief…” Johnny grunts. “You’re not the one carryin’ all the luggage. Besides, the kids must be tired from all this walkin’ too.”
“Are you tired, Mole?” Rabbit asks Mole, blinking innocently.
“Johnny’s just trying to use us as an excuse.” Mole answers.
“Ey! I was lookin’ out for you two!” Johnny retorts.
“Hmm.” The Chief says, her gaze fixed on the forest.
“Do you think there’s something out there, Chief…?”
“Do you?” She asks, without turning her head.
I gaze across the forest. Muddy earth, brown trunks, red leaves. Nothing out of the ordinary, ignoring the Ghostwood to our backs.
“I’m not having the feeling that we’re being watched, like I did when we were returning with the bloodbeast.”
The Chief relaxes her shoulders, turning back to help the others unload their packs for a breather.
She trusts my judgement. I’ll stay on sentry duty to keep everyone safe, just in case.
Only a couple of minutes into my watch, though, my wings begin to grow restless under my cloak, rubbing their wrists against my neck.
What? What’s got you all worked up? We’re not sensing anything watching us, so why are you-
“Gyaah!” I yelp, as my wings rush out from under my cloak, jerking me backwards and trying to turn me to face the Ghostwood.
“What the hell is wrong with you now? Normally you’d just tell or sense that there’s something close… ah.”
There’s a thing standing in the Ghostwood. A weird, blobby, humanoid-shaped thing with no head and a long crevice down its torso. Weird looking, but it doesn’t seem threatening.
“Is that thing… is there a name for it, Rann?” I turn to ask, but…
Rann’s frozen in place. Everybody is, frozen stiff staring at the thing in the Ghostwood. The Chief, Arezza, the kids, everyone.
Except me.
The thing takes a step closer with its thick, trunk-like leg. Its footfall makes no sound, nor does it disturb the ashen dust on the forest floor. A chill runs down my spin, making me tense - as my wings only grow more agitated, hanging low to my sides and scuffing the ground around my feet.
“Ma… ina…” The Chief barely says, her voice a harsh, pained whisper as I look back at her.
The thing takes another step closer. I don’t hear it, or see it move closer, but I feel it. My fingertips have grown numb, and my legs are stiff, but not immobile.
“Do… S…” The Chief hisses under her breath. She can barely move her lips.
Do what? I can’t enter the Ghostwood, from what everyone’s said about it. Do I shoo it away? Throw something? What should I do?
My wing is poking at the rocks on the ground around my feet. Will one of these… ah, whatever. Before it gets any closer.
I scoop up a pebble from the ground, turning and throwing it at the thing in the Ghostwood. I didn't even hit it; the rock fell quite short, as I struggled to get my arms in a good enough position to throw it far.
Still, that’s apparently good enough. The thing seems almost shocked that I threw something at it, before it turns around slowly, disappearing back into the Ghostwood with silent footsteps.
The second it disappears from view, the spell hanging over everyone ceases, as everyone gasps and jerks as they can suddenly move their bodies again.
“What… In Falian’s…” Johnny pants, trying to catch his breath.
“Whatever it was.” The Chief says, stepping forward and holding her staff aloft.
Rann goes to stop her, but he hardly gets a word out before the air crackles to life. A glowing orb appears and quickly grows at the tip of the Chief’s staff, doubling, tripling, quadrupling in size and illuminating all around it in the warmth of a candle’s flame, until the orb reaches critical mass, flattens to a disc, and a solid beam of light blasts outwards.
In a flash, a perfectly circular canyon has been blasted some way into the Ghostwood. The ground has a round dip in it where it was struck by the beam, as numerous bisected trees fall from the air, crashing into the ground and throwing up clouds of ash and dust. Whatever that thing was, if it was caught in the Chief’s attack, there’s certainly nothing left of it.
“It’s no longer a problem.” The Chief smiles to herself.
“Good job, Chief. Really showed it what’s what, if you even hit it. Now can anyone tell me what the hell that thing even was?!” Johnny yells in exasperation, having mostly recovered from whatever it did to us.
“I have no gods-damned idea, Johnny. I’ve never heard of or seen anything like that before. I’ve never seen anything move inside the Ghostwood.” Rann says, staring down the canyon the Chief blasted.
“By the First Queen…” Arezza says, kneeling down to check on Mole and Rabbit as they stand in front of her. “Are you two alright? Can you move okay?”
“We’re fine.” Mole says calmly, before turning to look in the Chief’s direction. “Chief of Haven. What did you see in that thing?”
The Chief ponders for a moment.
“Hunger. Envy. A good deal of cowardice.” She answers. “Which is unusual. Most animals rarely display such emotional depth.”
“Hunger, envy, and cowardice…” Arezza frowns, standing back up. “Those sound like the common traits of a manabeast…”
“A mana… You’re familiar with manabeasts, Arezza?” The Chief asks.
“From what I’ve read, both your world and mine have manabeasts; animals that feed on mana instead of meat or plants. They’re attracted to people with high levels of mana, so that’s likely why it was attracted to our group, given the two prodigious mages present, and perhaps why it can survive in a place like the Ghostwood.” Arezza answers, recalling what she’s read. Given her frustration at having so few books in the Capital, she’d be over the moons when she sees Haven’s library.
“Well, given all the other predatory beasts down here, it’s not unlikely that manabeasts would lurk here too. Evidently, very few talented mages end up down here if none of us have ever heard of one being present in the Abyss before.” The Chief sighs, looking out over the Ghostwood again to make sure that thing is either dead or has no will to return.
“Are you sure you won’t attract more of them after casting something flashy like that, Chief?” Rann asks, frowning a little.
“If it does, Marina seems to resist its power more than… us…” She trails off, turning to look at me.
She walks up in front of me, scanning me up and down with an inquisitive glint in her eye. She looks down at my wings, still low by my sides, raising an eyebrow slightly. She’s parsing through a lot of questions in her head, evidently, before she looks back up at my face.
“Could you hold your hand out for a moment, Marina.” She asks, smiling more sincerely than usual.
I comply, holding out my hand. She smiles, pointing with her finger as a tiny beam of light shoots out and hits the back of my hand dead centre.
“Ow!!” I hiss, pulling my hand back. That felt like a shock of electricity and the hot wax of a candle dripping onto my skin simultaneously.
The Chief calmly reaches out and grabs my hand, inspecting the back of it. There’s no mark, thankfully.
“Hmm. That should have left a mark. You seem to possess some resistance to magic, Marina.” The Chief nods, her curiosity sated.
“Then how come I’ve been rendered completely helpless every time you’ve bound me up in golden chains?”
“Because that’s using magic in a physical manner, Marina.” The Chief sighs lightly, as if correcting a young and headstrong student. “Being resistant to magic doesn’t make a mage throwing a rock at you with earth magic hurt any less.”
“Ya mean that ‘manabeast’ thingy was usin’ magic on us, Chief? And it was after us cuz of you?” Johnny frowns.
“It’s not the Chief’s fault, Johnny. We didn’t know that thing even existed.” Rann comments, giving Johnny a look.
“Alright, alright. I wasn't’ blamin’ her, Rann.” Johnny shoots back.
“It’s gone now. It’s been dealt with. Let’s get moving again. With luck, we might make it back in time for dinner.” The Chief sighs, picking her pack back up.
With the commotion with the manabeast sorted, we head south along the edge of the Seeping Wound, considerably more wary of our surroundings than we were before the thing in the Ghostwood. Hopefully, manabeasts like that are only native to the Ghostwood. As we walked, Arezza and the Chief shared what they knew of manabeasts; they tend to avoid other animals, and are rather defenceless against predators. They’re less animal and more a moving, hungry coalescence of mana feeding endlessly to fill its bottomless pit of a stomach. Given the amount of normal predators in the Abyss, it’s unlikely that manabeasts would exist anywhere outside a cursed place like the Ghostwood.
Manabeasts can take many different forms, to the point that some believe that every individual manabeast is wholly unique from the rest. Many bedtime stories that warn of scary things that’ll come get you if you don’t behave are about manabeasts, and while less common in the Overlands than they are in the Underlands, they’re still a serious threat when they turn up. Some of them are almost indistinguishable from humans, while others are, well, whatever that thing in the Ghostwood was, and the abilities they possess can vary as wildly as their appearances. There’s even tales of people or corpses turning into manabeasts.
As the afternoon rolled by, it began to rain lightly. It would have been refreshing were the raindrops not heavy and iron-rich, leaving rust-coloured stains on our cloaks and covering us in the stink of old blood. To think, I used to love when it rained like this. It was cool and refreshing, especially welcome on a hot day.
Now? It just stains everything and leaves a bad smell in the air.
After hours of stomping through the mud, we finally make it to a narrow dip along the Seeping Wound’s bank, and a small clearing next to it. The crossroads to Haven.
“This is the route to Haven?” Griffin asks, glancing down the numerous pathways east, and the lone path headed west.
“That it is. Come on, before this rain gets any heavier.” Rann says, walking over the shallows of the Wound.
“But this is so obviously a well-used crossroad… how has no-one ever found Haven?” Griffin continues, confused at how obvious the route to Haven is.
“Jackhorn gave you the answer to that already. Nothing but trees, fire pits, and more trees this way.” Rann shrugs.
We keep moving on to Haven. Our feet hurt, the guys are probably tired from carrying the heavier packs, but none of us are inclined to stop while it’s still raining. Even though we’re in the clear now, we travel the last leg of the journey in silence. The rain hasn’t let up, and it’s only made the ground even harder to cross. Mole and Rabbit are utterly exhausted, to the point that they’re now riding Arshak and Arshiya’s backs respectively, dozing peacefully. I’m not the only one who feels like this return trip has been even more tiresome than usual. Maybe it’s the rain, maybe it’s that thing we encountered. This has been a fruitful endeavour, but by now, I’m pretty sure all of us are going to crawl into bed the second we get home.
Our moods begin to lift as the forest surrounding us grows more and more familiar. Yes, these bendy, twisted trees are everywhere, but these are our twisted, bendy trees. The ones we always see when travelling to and from Haven. A sign we’re not far from home.
As we round the final bend up the hill, the surest sign we’re home comes into view before us. The dirty, rough palisade gates of Haven. To anyone else they'd look imposing and hostile, but to us, it’s like looking upon the pearly gates of Heaven.
We’re home.