They left Oleg’s outpost at first light, the memory of warm beds and hot stew already fading.
The four captured horses were a welcome addition, a tangible reward for a night of bloodshed. While Gassi made some adjustments to the wagon, retrofitting a harness to allow two horses to pull the load, the others discussed their next move. The fey’s cryptic message still echoed in their minds: the main bandit force was a day’s march south, an enemy they were not yet ready to face. But the fey had also spoken of poachers to the northwest.
“A smaller threat seems the wiser path,” Aurelio argued, running a whetstone along the edge of his new cold-iron hatchet. “We are weary, and our resources are thin.”
“The fey have not steered us wrong yet,” Nym agreed, his hand resting on his bandaged side, a painful reminder of the forest’s sharp edges. “And they owe us a favor. Perhaps we can gain more from them.”
The decision was made. Leaving their new wagon and Gassi’s alchemical lab in the relative safety of the trading post, they mounted their horses and rode northwest, back into the whispering woods.
They journeyed for hours, the trees closing in around them, a dense green ceiling that dappled the path in shifting light. Aurelio rode point, his posture tense, his shield raised in a constant state of readiness.
“I do not trust this quiet,” he muttered to Zogg, who rode beside him.
His caution was warranted. As Nym urged his horse past a thicket, a sharp, metallic snap broke the silence, followed by a curse. Nym’s horse reared, and the gnome was thrown, his leg caught in the serrated iron jaws of a bear trap. Zogg was off his horse in an instant, and with a grunt of exertion, pried the vicious trap open.
“Poachers,” Gassi observed, dismounting to examine the crude mechanism. While he tended to Nym‘s new wound with his pungent salves, Zogg and Aurelio swept the area, discovering a half-dozen more traps hidden in the undergrowth.
As Gassi worked, his eyes scanned the forest floor. “One must always look for opportunity,” he said, plucking strange berries from a bush and digging up a gnarled root. “Even in misfortune.”
“Can we eat these?” Aurelio asked, eyeing the bright red berries with suspicion.
“You can eat anything once,” Nym grumbled from the ground, wincing as Gassi tightened the bandage.
The day wore on. Their hunt for the poachers’ camp proved fruitless. Following the trail of traps led them deeper into the forest, but they found no sign of who had set them. As they circled back toward the river, Aurelio‘s keen eyes spotted it: the corpse of a man, lying face down in the tall grass. He had been dead for some time, his body pierced by a score of black-fletched arrows.
“This must be the trapper Svetlana spoke of,” Aurelio said, kneeling by the body. “Breg.”
Gassi examined one of the arrows. “Not the bandits’ work,” he announced. “The fletching is different. The heads are bodkin points, made to pierce armor. Hunters use broadheads.” He looked at the surrounding trees. “And these traps… they are not his. The trigger mechanisms are too complex. See here? Multiple tripwires, all leading to the same kill zone. He did not stumble into his own traps. He was led into someone else’s.”
“Someone who hunts men,” Zogg said, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
They searched the body but found nothing of value, save the trapper’s own hunting arrows and a weathered-looking skinning knife. Svetlana‘s ring was not among his possessions. Realizing the poacher they sought was already dead—and that a new, more cunning threat was now in the woods—they decided their current course was a fool’s errand. They would return to Oleg’s and seek out the alchemist, Bokken. Perhaps he would have more useful information.
As dusk settled, casting long shadows through the trees, they made camp. It was a cold camp, with no fire to give away their position. They ate their dry rations in grim silence, each lost in their own thoughts. The night passed fitfully, and as they set out again in the gray light of dawn, they were ambushed.
They were not arrows or traps this time, but teeth and claws. From the undergrowth burst a pair of monstrous, dog-like creatures, their fur matted, their eyes glowing with a feral light. They were Brush Thylacines—vicious predators that hunted in small, aggressive packs.
The first beast leaped upon Aurelio, its venomous fangs sinking deep into his leg. He cried out and went down, the world dissolving into a haze of pain and encroaching darkness. The second creature charged Nym, who met it with a blast of force from his fingertips, staggering it.
Zogg moved to flank the creatures, his sword a blur, while Gassi, perched precariously on a tree branch, began to chant, a glowing orb of light materializing over the battlefield to banish the gloom.
The fight was a desperate, chaotic scramble. Gassi‘s healing magic flowed into Aurelio, pulling him back from the brink of unconsciousness. Revived, the nobleman staggered to his feet and drunk one of Gassi‘s elixirs, the foul-tasting liquid dulling the fire of the poison in his veins. Zogg, a whirlwind of steel and magic, danced around the creatures, his spell-infused blade leaving deep, bleeding wounds. Finally, seeing an opening, Nym uttered a word of power, and a bolt of pure energy slammed into the last thylacine, dropping it in its tracks.
They stood, panting, over the corpses of the strange beasts. The forest, Aurelio thought, was far more dangerous than any mere bandit.
It was late the next day when they finally reached their destination: a small, isolated hut east of the trading post. The place was rustic to the point of being dilapidated, with a garden of strange, pungent herbs growing in tangled profusion around it.
As they approached, a man emerged from around the back of the cottage. He was dressed in practical, earth-toned clothes, his hair and beard untamed, his hands stained with dirt and chemicals. He seemed more a part of the forest than a resident of it.
This was Bokken.
“Oleg sent you,” he stated, his voice a gravelly rasp. It wasn’t a question. “Need potions, do you?”
Gassi, ever the professional, stepped forward. “We might. But I am an alchemist myself. I was hoping you might have recipes to sell. Or that we might trade knowledge.”
Bokken snorted, a sound like grinding stones. “My knowledge isn’t for sale. But my needs are. I’m short on Fangberries. You bring me a supply from the Tuskwater Lake, and we can talk. A recipe, perhaps. A discount.” He gestured vaguely to the southwest. “It’s a day’s travel. There’s a cave system nearby. You might find bandits there.” He paused, then added, “You’ll also find spiders. Big ones. As large as ponies. Be careful.” He spat on the ground.
A look of dawning comprehension crossed Nym‘s face. “The lake… the caves… the spiders…” he muttered. This was the area the fey had warned him away from, the domain of the ‘great bully.’
Bokken, seeing the look on Nym’s face, gave a grim smile. “You remind me of my brother, Kurell,” he said, holding up his right hand, which was missing its little finger. “He was a talker, too. Talked so much he didn’t hear our mother telling him to stop hitting her. So I corrected him. He bit my finger off for the trouble.”
The name hit Nym like a physical blow. Kurell. The man who had haunted his past, now connected to this gruff hermit in the heart of the Stolen Lands.
“My friends,” Nym said, his voice low and tight after Bokken had retreated into his hut. “It seems all paths, no matter how winding, lead to the same dark place. To the south.”
The company looked at each other. The fey had warned them. Bokken had warned them. But they now had a task, a bargain to fulfill, and a growing suspicion that the bandits, the poachers, the spiders, and the Stag Lord were all tangled together in the same poisoned web. Their journey to the Tuskwater had just become unavoidable.
“Small world,” Nym muttered, his voice barely a whisper. “He is not like his brother. Bokken has a… rustic honesty. Kurell was polished poison.”
They rode back to Oleg‘s Trading Post in thoughtful silence. There, they restocked their supplies and retrieved their wagon. Gassi, with a few tools borrowed from Oleg, skillfully modified the harness, setting their new horses to pull the wagon in a team. The added horsepower would make their journey faster and smoother.
As they prepared to depart, Oleg clapped Aurelio on the shoulder. “The Stag Lord’s domain is no place for honest folk,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “You are brave to go there. Or very foolish.”
“Perhaps both,” Aurelio replied with a thin smile. “But we have a promise to keep.” He glanced at Svetlana, who stood watching them, her hands clasped nervously. “We will find your ring.”
She gave them a watery, grateful smile. “Be safe,” she whispered.
They set out at dawn, leaving the relative safety of the outpost behind and plunging southwest into the untamed heart of the Greenbelt. Zogg took the reins, his powerful frame easily handling the team of horses. Gassi, his work on the harness complete, sequestered himself in the back of the wagon, the clinking of vials and the pungent smell of brewing potions drifting out from under the canvas cover. The others rode alongside, their eyes scanning the terrain.
The land grew wilder. The groomed path gave way to a rough track, which in turn dissolved into open plains dotted with copses of gnarled trees. The air was still, the silence broken only by the creak of the wagon and the thud of their horses’ hooves.
Late in the afternoon, they entered a wide, empty field. Strange, sentinel-like rock formations dotted the landscape, casting long, skeletal shadows in the setting sun. An unnatural quiet hung over the place.
“This feels wrong,” Aurelio said, reining in his horse. “It’s a perfect place for an ambush.”
Zogg pulled the wagon to a halt. “I agree.”
In the center of the path ahead lay a single, bleached spine, its stark white a jarring note against the green earth. Aurelio dismounted, his hand on his flail, and approached it cautiously, Zogg matching him step for step.
He never reached it.
The ground before him erupted. Earth and turf flew as a nightmare creature clawed its way into the fading light. It was a spider, but a spider of monstrous proportions, its body as large as a pony, its multiple eyes glistening with a malevolent intelligence. A Giant Trapdoor Spider. It let out a chittering shriek and scuttled forward, its hairy legs moving with terrifying speed.
“Spiders!” Nym screamed from the wagon, fumbling for his weapon. “Why is it always spiders?”
Gassi, peeking from the wagon, was the first to react, unleashing a wave of psychic energy at the beast. The creature barely seemed to notice.
Aurelio, seeing the monstrosity charge, raised his shield and braced for impact. The spider slammed into him, its fangs dripping with a sickly green venom. The shield held, but the force of the blow sent him staggering back. He felt a sharp, burning pain as the fanged mandibles bit into his exposed arm, the venom a fire in his veins.
Nym leaped from the moving wagon, landing in a crouch. His whip-sword hissed as he flicked it out, but his aim, skewed by panic, went wide. From the other side of the path, a second, identical spider burst from another hidden burrow. This one scuttled with unnatural speed, not at the party, but away, leaping an astonishing distance to a new position, flanking them.
Zogg didn’t hesitate. A crackle of ozone, and he vanished, reappearing in a flash of dimensional energy directly behind the first spider, his blade already singing. The creature, surprised, screeched as his enchanted Aldori sword bit deep into its chitinous hide.
Aurelio, his vision blurring from the poison, stumbled. The world tilted crazily. Gassi, seeing him fall, acted with strange and sudden inspiration. He held up an empty potion vial, his other hand glowing with power.
“Zogg!” he shouted, “Catch!” A fully formed Elixir of Life materialized in Gassi‘s hand, which he then tossed to the startled orc.
But the spiders were relentless. The second beast, having repositioned itself, sprang at Nym, its fangs sinking into his shoulder. The gnome went down with a cry of pain, the same debilitating poison flooding his system. The first spider turned on Aurelio. Still reeling from the initial bite, he was too slow to react. The creature’s fangs found his neck, and the world went black.
“Aurelio!” Zogg roared. He poured the contents of the magical potion Gassi had created down the nobleman’s throat. Aurelio coughed, his eyes fluttering open, color slowly returning to his face.
The fight had become a desperate struggle for survival. With two of their party poisoned and weakened, the tide was turning against them.
Nym, however, was not yet defeated. He dragged himself to his feet, drew his whip-sword, and with a scream of pure fury, lashed out, his strange weapon tearing a grievous wound in the spider that had bitten him. The creature shrieked and fell back, its legs scrabbling at the torn earth. Zogg, seizing the moment, charged the remaining spider, his final, brutal spellstrike ending the battle.
Two monstrous bodies lay twitching on the blood-soaked ground. Zogg rushed to Aurelio’s side, who was conscious but trembling, the spider’s venom still wracking his body. Gassi scrambled down from his tree-perch and administered one of the antidotes he had brewed in the wagon. The effects were immediate, but not total. The burning poison receded, but a profound weakness remained.
Nym stood over the corpse of the spider he had slain, his breathing ragged. He looked at the gaping, smoking hole in the ground from which it had emerged. His face, usually a mask of wry detachment, was twisted with a cold, slow-burning rage. He pulled a torch from his pack, lit it with a flick of his flint and steel, and without a word, hurled it down into the spider’s nest.
“I hate nature,” he hissed.
Zogg, watching him, nodded in grim understanding. His own hands began to glow as he gathered his magic, adding a plume of arcane fire to the burgeoning blaze. The web-lined tunnel caught immediately, the fire roaring with a hungry, cleansing light that pushed back the gathering dark.