In this universe, there are many planets classified under the extremely scientific label: Magicky places.
One of these magicky places is a planet called Etchex; magic is scarce here, but powerful and dangerous. Fortunately, this planet does not have technology suitable for space exploration, or else the Court of Galactic Defence would take steps to remove it from this dimension.
It is, however, a Class 4 threat. As such, researchers and their security detail must undergo a rigorous and lengthy preparation stage before visiting. This is not because there are many dangerous people who wield magic, but because the magic moves through the land and at any moment the ground beneath their feet, or the trees above their heads could turn against them.
Usually, the magic of the land swirls about the planet like a maelstrom or a hurricane. But there are some places in which the magic lingers. Settling in like the dregs of water collecting in a pothole after a storm.
We classify these places as Magic Puddles.
These are incredibly dangerous and generally hostile, for reasons that are as of yet unknown. In the pursuit of elucidation, we have sent one of our researchers and a troupe of soldiers to investigate one such Puddle.
In the region of the planet translated as Valarc, there is a forest that the locals call Valkoi Netsa, or in English, the White Forest. The locals tell many legends about the White Forest, and the ruins within.
According to them, many hundreds of years ago Valarc was under the jurisdiction of Duke Cavren, his counts and barons scattered about the land. There are legends that say the Duke went mad and had a witch brought in to curse the land. Others say that Baron Hidness was a mage himself, and tried to blackmail Cavren into naming him the next Duke. When Cavren refused, Hidness cursed the land. Others say that the three Counts of Valarc worked together to destroy the Duke, and magic itself cursed the region in anger.
We are fairly certain that these legends are simply that, but we must keep them in mind while investigating regardless.
We have sent one Elissa Davis to investigate, and now direct you towards the screen. We have a camouflaged drone following behind her, so as to gather an unbiased perspective on the mission, to contrast with her own reports.
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The trek through Valarc to get to the White Forest had been perilous at best. Two of the six soldiers sent as Elissa’s security detail were injured, and a third, while unharmed, had nearly died to a sudden extreme quicksand encounter.
The quicksand, or whatever it was, solidified back into a hard clay as soon as the soldier had sunk into it. The soldier then proceeded to shout that something was pulling him down. The danger wasn’t his being pulled down to suffocate, but being torn in half, since the clay wasn’t letting him sink, and whatever pulled at him was strong enough that it was a genuine possibility.
They’d gotten out of that situation alive and unharmed, but now, staring at the looming forest before them, every single one of the team was second-guessing their decision to stay.
True to its name, every single tree in the White Forest was a dry, bony white color, the leaves a drained, de-saturated grey, the veins standing out against the leaf in the same white as the bark. The types of tree were all different, though none recognizable to the team except from the files on alien flora. The similarly pale underbrush grew thick on the forest floor.
Dark green and purple ivy draped from many of the tree branches, while a deep, blood red moss crawled up the trunks. Both of these factors causing the supposedly bright forest to appear quite dark.
One of the soldiers, a young man from the Southern colony, cleared his throat. “May I ask why we’re going into the creepy death forest again?”
Elissa chuckled wanly. “Bramblekeep castle isn’t too terribly far from the edge of the forest, only a day’s walk according to the locals. According to one of the legends, Count Keuric was the head of the secret alliance, and he was supposedly good friends with Hidness, so it would be most beneficial to explore whatever’s left of it.”
The soldier nodded. “Will it be worth it?”
Elissa laughed. “Of course it will be. Even if we find out that there was a conspiracy after all, and yet it wasn’t any that we were aware of, we’ll still have learned something.”
The soldier seemed fine with that, but one of the older soldiers, one who’d gotten his arm nearly bitten off by a wild thugad (which looked like an alien cow, but was faster than a wolf and had teeth as sharp as knives), stepped forward. “What if one of us dies? Will it be worth it then?”
Elissa hesitated.
“What if all six of us die? Will it still be worth it then, miss?”
“This research could-”
The soldier interrupted. “What if you die. What if all seven of us die, and the drone is the only thing to make it back. Will it be worth it then?”
Elissa took a deep breath. “This research could lead to us solving the problem, and either calming, or getting rid of the magic puddles. If we were able to do that, that could save thousands of researchers and soldiers, let alone the number of natives we could save. The magic puddles serve no purpose but death, and if seven deaths can help save so many then yes. It is worth it.”
The soldier stared at her for a moment. “Alright missy. Tell me that same thing once we’re done here, and lives have been lost.”
Elissa held the soldier’s iron glare for barely a second longer, before she turned away. “Let’s go and find this castle.”
The soldiers fell into position around her as they marched forward, ducking under some particularly low-hanging ivy, and entering the shadow of the White Forest.
Shortly after entering, the darkness grew enough that it almost could be mistaken for nighttime. The pale trees and foliage stood out dimly, but the dark moss and vines created eerie shapes in the darkness.
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Faces leering out of the branches, alien monsters prowling after them, slender, humanoid figures lurking in the background. All of them mocking Elissa.
Was this a fool’s errand after all?
Should she have insisted on a bigger escort? Should she have taken a smaller escort? Should she have taken a smaller, less dangerous mission? What if-
A shout interrupted her doubts, drawing her attention to one of the five younger soldiers. He’d drawn his sword and was glaring at the underbrush.
The older soldier drew his own sword and stepped over. “What is it, Arthur? What did you see?”
The soldier, Arthur apparently, didn’t look up from the ground. “A big snake just brushed against my leg, and judging from the attitudes of all the other critters we’ve come across, I have a bad feeling about it.”
The older soldier nodded. “Keep an eye out, gents, but lets keep moving. No sense waiting.”
Elissa suddenly felt far less comfortable walking through the forest. Now it wasn’t just creepy shadows and silhouettes. Now there were snakes, which meant there were other forest creatures, which meant that there were far more dangers and creatures for the magic puddle to inhabit, or whatever it did to them.
The darkness grew deeper as they ventured further, the plants growing taller and more twisted, and the ivies hung lower, obscuring everything before them.
The group didn’t encounter the snake again, and nothing truly terrible happened for the remainder of the day, though there were many scares, and Elissa couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes following her.
She had thought that telling night from day would have been impossible in the forest, but as they kept going, their vision abruptly dropped to practically non-existent as night actually arrived. The only light was a slight luminescence from the veins of the leaves above them, but it wasn’t enough to illuminate the ground where they walked.
About an hour after it got darker, the party stopped to take their energy shots, so they didn’t have to sleep in a forest that would actively try to kill them.
The younger soldiers, including the one who had initially asked her if this would all be worth it, all chatted quietly, talking about what they had wanted to do before they’d become soldiers, what their families were like, what their hobbies were, and what they still wanted to do. They didn’t share their names, which Elissa was a bit disappointed by, but logically the four of them would already know their names if they had trained together around the same time.
The older soldier didn’t join the conversation, though he made no effort to quiet them and actually looked entertained, but he did stay a little ways ahead of the group, sword still in hand, his other hand hovering near the gun strapped to his belt.
As they kept walking, Elissa began to wonder if they were going the wrong direction, or if the entire existence of Bramblekeep was a fabrication.
Quite a bit of time passed before they finally arrived at their destination.
The ivy hanging from the trees was incredibly thick at this point, and it took some doing to push through it, but once Elissa emerged on the other side, her eyes widened and she couldn’t help but grin.
Standing square in the middle of a large clearing, sat a strange structure adorned with the luminous veins of leaves. ‘Twas strange only because it looked so similar to a European castle, but with a far smoother, more twisting design to it.
Of course, the finer details of the structure were hidden beneath the plethora of vines that wound up and around it, along with the same red moss creeping up from the foundation.
“We did it!” Elissa exclaimed, hurrying forward. “Come on, we should get started already!”
The older soldier caught her arm. “Now hold on, miss. This is an old building in a hotspot for aggressive magic. With all due respect, I think I should check it out first.” He turned to the other soldiers. “Check the perimeter. If I don’t return in fifteen, take the lady home. Understand?”
The remaining soldiers nodded, scattering to do as instructed.
Elissa crossed her arms. “Listen, I understand the need for caution. I truly do. But we can’t come all this way for nothing.”
The older soldier glared at her. “You haven’t noticed have you?”
“Noticed what?”
Instead of answering, the soldier took two steps closer and leaned forward menacingly. “If I don’t come back, my men are leaving with or without you. You can stay here and study this house until my corpse is a skeleton of dust, but I will not make any of my soldiers die for your little research project.” He straightened up and turned back to the house, marching off without another word.
Elissa frowned. What had she missed? The grizzled soldier had been calling all the shots, so it wasn’t like she could have led them wrong, or made a wrong decision.
She was jarred out of her musings as one of the creepy humanoid shadows of ivy dropped to the ground with a rustle.
One of the soldiers rushed over at her yelp of fear.
“Where’s the trouble?” He asked intensely, both gun and sword in hand.
Elissa pointed to where the ivy had fallen. “Some ivy fell and startled me,” she replied, her voice wavering despite her best efforts.
The soldier, contrary to her expectation, nodded seriously, holstering his gun and gripping his sword better. He crept off into the woods and, upon finding the offending pile of leaves, stabbed it several times, chopping it into pieces that were about the length of a hand.
Once he was done with that, he straightened, glancing around to make sure no other plants dared fall from their branches. Upon ensuring just that, he poked the remains of the first offender, scattering them about before returning.
He nodded at Elissa, saluting her with his sword. “If you see anything else suspicious, don’t hesitate to shout. And well spotted.”
Elissa frowned at his rather extreme reaction to falling vines. Sure, they’d seen the land do some pretty crazy things, but since they’d been in the forest nothing had happened to cause alarm, and they hadn’t been that jumpy beforehand.
She decided not to worry about it too much, and was saved from trying not to think about it further by the return of the older soldier, who Elissa was considering nick-naming Gruff, just so she could think of him by something other than ‘the older soldier’.
He whistled sharply, and the younger soldiers scampered over.
“Is the perimeter secure?” He asked as soon as they had all gathered.
One of the other young soldiers, not the one who had murdered the offending ivies, nodded. “Yes sir. Perimeter secured with minimal encounters.”
“Minimal?”
The ivy killer (Elissa was thinking of thinking of him as Clarence for some reason) stepped forward. “Ms. Davis caught a potential problem before it escalated into something troubling, quickly and effectively calling for backup. I took care of it to the best of my ability, and found no other problems in the vicinity.”
Gruff nodded. “Well done. The building seems structurally sound, and I didn’t encounter any enemies or traps, so I think that it’s safe to explore.”
Elissa stepped forward eagerly. “Excellent! Any last-minute warnings, or can I get started?”
Gruff almost sneered at her. “Did you figure it out yet?” At her confused silence, he scoffed. “Then by all means, go ahead. You and you, stand guard at the door. Let nothing in, and if you hear screams or yells, or anything out of the ordinary, try to make it home, understand?” The two he’d pointed out nodded and took up posts at the moss-covered archway that led into the castle.
Gruff turned to Elissa and nodded shortly, prompting her to take the lead.
She hurried quickly, yet carefully into the old building, Gruff, Clarence, and the other young soldier following behind her.
The architecture was beautifully done, hard stone and metal carved into soft swoops and swirls, making the walls, floors, and ceiling blend together like cloth.
The vines, moss, and ivies from outside were still everywhere inside. Thick vines trailed across the floor, thinner ones winding up barely noticeable pillars, and underneath all of it a thick layer of moss.
Elissa happily bottle up samples of each and labeled them, just in case the inside of the house had any significant impact on the growth thereof.
The first couple of rooms were surprisingly sparse as she went on with her exploration, and those that had much furniture usually were just empty counters, tables, chairs and whatnot.
In fact, it wasn’t just the first couple of rooms that were useless, but the entire first floor seemed almost determined to have nothing interesting in it. The furniture was alien and pretty, and the general architecture continued to impress, but other than that there was no art, no books, no writing of any sort, and no musical instruments. No ancient food containers, no cracked pottery or shattered dishware. Not even any mundane silverware or cooking utensils.
Then they found the Staircase.