After talking it through with the others the group started looking for a way down. The cliffs were steep and rocky. A few plants sprouted out here and there. A few vines looked thick enough that they even thought about climbing down that way but it just didn’t seem safe enough.

It took them almost an hour to find a way down. It was a small slope winding down the cliff.

The little road leading down was only wide enough for one person at a time, getting a bit narrower at times even. But it was surprisingly sturdy and went all the way down smoothly.

It took them only a few minutes to go down that way, they still treaded carefully but there were no adrenaline infused moments. After their long search, it was almost a relief to find such a simple way down. Even Max who was usually scared of heights managed the climb down comfortably.

While climbing down they got a better overview of their surroundings But the trees were different from the jungle vegetation they got used to. They held a different kind of green, several shades darker, almost emerald coloured. It was hard to judge from that distance but they also looked quite a bit larger than normal trees.

“Even the earth here seems different.” Sam noticed as they finally made it down. Sure enough, the dir had none of the red hue that they had seen so far in the jungle.

It was getting late as they were walking and Max suddenly started noticing something. A soft pull from the other side of the river they had been walking along. He felt like he should go there for some reason. He couldn’t describe the sensation but something told him he should be there. A faint promise of power. Or rather not power but rightness. As if he would find a piece of a puzzle he didn’t know about there.

He looked over to the forest on the other side with wariness in his eyes.

The feeling continued as they walked. There was something on the other side in the forest. He could almost see traces in the air running that way. As they got to the point where he felt he was in line with it, he saw a few faint blue wisps flowing through the air towards it. It was only for a brief second. Gone a step or two later. But he had a feeling of what he saw. Mana. Something in him resonated with that.

“Do you have that feeling too?” Max asked the group.

“What feeling?” Ryland answered. “If you mean hunger, then yes.”

Rolling his eyes, Max tried to explain the feeling and what he thought he saw for a second to them. Usually seeing bluish lines flowing through the air wouldn’t be something you would share, for fear of being called crazy. But so many crazy things happened the last few days that Max felt like he had nothing to lose.

In the middle of his sentence Bixby just stopped. He started concentrating and sniffing the air a little. The others stopped a step later and shared confused glances but the Nodefox seemed to feel for something.

“I can feel it faintly. God you’re right Max. That’s a.. that’s a Node. I think there is a Node over on that side of the valley.” The Nodefox said, smiling. “That’s great news, Truly great news! To find a Node here, stumbling upon it without looking. What are the chances!” By now he started laughing like he had just found gold.

The others didn’t fully understand the impact of this news. But they shared some enthusiasm after seeing the Nodefox almost do a little happy dance.

Max only had a broad idea of what a Node was or why it was important. Bixby had told them a bit about it the last day but his knowledge itself was limited, since it seemed to be something reserved for the few people interacting with it. But apparently the Node would allow them to use surrounding Mana for cultivation. The Node would allow them to create a city hub, giving them all sorts of comforts. The way it sounded, they might even be able to use it for running water and electricity. Or at least a substitute for that. Max would love to take a hot bath.

“So should we go there now and let Max do his Node claiming thingy?” Ryland asked.

“We should probably rest for the night first.” Bixby said. “Claiming Nodes isn’t … Well, it isn’t an easy thing. To claim a Node, you first have to best its guardians. On a Node that’s so newly integrated, that shouldn’t be too difficult, yet one can never be sure.”

That besting guardians stuff was new to Max. But it didn’t surprise him, from what he had learned about this new world so far, strength was important and fighting was a constant companion of life.

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“Sounds reasonable.” Dave said and shrugged. The others simply nodded. A couple days of trekking through the jungle and a few near death experiences brought out a more primal side in all of them. One that didn’t flinch away from danger.

They quickly set up camp in the shade of a group of trees. It hid them from being immediately discovered but after so many days in the thick of the jungle, Max still felt oddly exposed out here on these plains.

They also kept their usual watch rotation during the night, allowing each of them to get a decent amount of sleep while still not neglecting their safety.

Max sat through his watch in peace, watching the night sky that he had been denied for the last couple of days. Sometimes she felt his gaze slipping over to where Sarah slept, but he quickly reeled it back in as soon as he noticed. He didn’t want to be the creep that kept staring at sleeping girls.

Still he couldn’t quite help it, since their talk the first night, they had only gotten closer. There was something about Sarah that made Max feel deeply understood. It helped that she was attractive, but still he found himself always profoundly enjoying their conversations together.

Most of that probably was due to the fact that they had gone through intense trauma together. They all had. He and Sarah had just spent a little more time together than the rest. That was probably all that was to it.

Dave was still lying awake and staring up at the darkness above him, not being able to sleep. He saw Max going to sleep and Sam taking over his position at the night watch.

Sighing silently at how night time had already passed he gave up on sleep.

He had laid down still and quiet for a while, not wanting to disturb the others, since he knew they needed the rest. But Dave knew from the moment he first laid down that he wouldn’t get any sleep.

He got up as quiet as he could and sneaked through the camp like a ghost. Intend not to wake anybody. Sam threw him a questioning look as Dave was leaving the camp. At least Dave thought it was a questioning look, he pretty much only saw the bare silhouette of Sam in the darkness.

Pointing away from the camp and shrugging, Dave hoped to signal Sam that he only wanted to go for a little walk. Sam simply shrugged back and turned away, facing the wide open plains again. That was all there was to it.

Smiling Dave increased the distance between him and the camp and took a deep breath. The fresh night air filled his lungs and he found peace in the utter silence of the night.

Even as a child Dave loved being taken outside when he couldn’t sleep. He remembered how his parents took him out on the balcony when he was sick or came to their bed in the middle of the night. The embrace of cool night air and darkness always made him feel at ease.

The quiet made him relax in a way the constant buzz of the jungle hadn’t. It was the first time he was alone for a while and he felt a part of himself returning. A part he hadn’t known he lost.

Straining, he could hear the river. A faint rushing of water. He decided to head over, just to take a look. They had talked about heading over to check out the Node the next day, so maybe he could already gather some insights.

Besides, he was longing for a walk. All the chaos and confusion over the last few days. Nothing better to deal with anxiety than a nice long walk. One would think he had walked enough these last days. But there was a different clarity and peace one would reach when walking alone and undisturbed.

His wounds were healed by now. His leg had still hurt a little yesterday but after a last healing session from Sam, nothing but a fresh scar was remaining.

He kept thinking back to the fight with those NodeFoxes. The tiger fight, he wasn’t thinking about much. Sure he had come closer to death than he should have and it was probably the craziest thing he had ever done jumping in front of a tiger.

But the reason his mind kept returning to the Tree Dungeon instead of the jungle clearing, was that he was still working through the fact that these NodeFoxes were sapient.

Dave was always big into philosophy, especially ethics and he knew he should probably feel bad. He killed sentient pain feeling beings. A while ago he couldn’t even have imagined killing a rat.

But he found no emotion inside him now. Sometimes he imagined that these people may have had families. He could picture them playing with little Nodefoxes throwing balls or whatever. But he still didn’t feel guilty. He felt a bit bad for the people they had left behind but he saw no fault in himself. He was forced to kill them to survive. His mind adapted to this simple fact surprisingly quickly.

Did that make him a bad human being? Was he somehow twisted?

As he kept pondering these things he suddenly found he had arrived in front of the river. The moonlight reflected a bit from the water. The air was humid and the sound of it rushing along filled the air.

Dave stared across the body of water, it was a few dozen metres wide where he stood. He lost himself in the rhythmic sound and way the moonlight reflected onto the waves. There was a beauty and stillness in the way the world seemed to be solely composed of those silvery waves and soothing sounds.

Suddenly something in him screamed danger. He immediately jumped to the side as a blade of wind rushed past him. The gust seemed razor sharp.

Dave turned to see where it came from. A NodeFox was standing not far from him. He cursed himself for being so entranced by the river that he forgot his surroundings and immediately summoned his spear.