Chapter 15: Forest of Flesh and Bone

  We set off westward toward the Vaelthorn Fields, five of us now, with full packs, fresh gear, and one boar in makeshift armor trotting proudly beside us.

  The world felt alive in that quiet, early way. Insects hummed in the tall grass. Birds chirped their morning songs from hidden branches. The rustling of tufftails echoed above, their furry bodies darting between limbs like nervous squirrels on a sugar rush.

  Bob, ever vigilant, kept his eyes trained on the canopy. He watched them with all the solemn focus of a guard on duty, snorting softly each time one scurried too close overhead. His ears twitched at every sound, every shift in the trees.

  It wasn’t long into our journey that the forest’s calm gave way to something else, something darker.

  A low, guttural growl rumbled from Bob’s throat, deep and sharp like a warning bell. He stopped dead in his tracks, hackles rising. Not even a heartbeat later, the underbrush to our left exploded.

  Wither Ghouls.

  They burst from the foliage in a frenzy of motion, twisted things that looked like corpses halfway claimed by the forest. Their limbs were grotesque, formed from gnarled bone and bark, fused in ways that defied anatomy. One dragged what might have once been a leg, now replaced by a thick root spiraling into the dirt with every lurching step.

  Plant tendrils erupted from their torsos, writhing like sentient worms, slick with sap and bile. They snapped blindly at the air, wriggling through the gaps in the ghoul’s decaying flesh as if the forest itself had decided to puppeteer the dead. Each movement came with a wet, dragging sound, a squelch of moss and meat.

  It was like watching a nightmare claw its way into the waking world.

  Bromm fired first, his musket roaring with a thunderous crack. The shot tore clean through the closest ghoul, shearing off half its torso in an explosion of rot and splinters. The thing didn’t die, though. It twitched violently, then paused, its head lolling to the side, before slowly, erratically, dragging itself forward again. It dragged itself forward like a marionette mid-collapse, twitching, flailing, but still moving with purpose

  Beside me, Veldrin had already begun casting. The air around his outstretched palm shimmered and flexed, glowing with pulsing waves of red light. Energy gathered, crackling around his fingers like coiled lightning.

  But he never got the chance to finish.

  A sharp crack rang out as the ground beneath the ghouls fractured, splitting like ice under pressure, as though the forest had reached its breaking point. Vines erupted upward from the tear, thick and barbed, lashing around the nearest undead with terrifying speed. The ghouls shrieked, their voices hollow and unnatural as the vines coiled tighter, winding around their limbs, throats, and torsos.

  The tendrils moved like living things. Not wild. Not aimless. Angry.

  In moments, the ghouls were swallowed whole in living prisons of thorns. Then—one by one—they imploded.

  The vines didn’t constrict. They pulled inward, collapsing the bodies with a sickening crunch. Rotting flesh and bone burst from the pressure, spraying blackened gore and fibrous pulp in every direction. What remained of the ghouls was unrecognizable—just oozing clumps of twisted plant matter where monsters had stood only seconds before.

  A moment of stunned silence followed. Then the vines retracted, melting back into the cracked earth, as though the forest was cleaning up after itself.

  Bromm, Veldrin and I looked back, even Bob.. And saw Elunara standing there with a huge smile on her face

  “My word.. Elunara” Veldrin began “Nature, Elunara, is meant to nurture, not puree the opposition.”

  Elunara rolled her eyes, shooting him a look sharp enough to prune a hedge. Veldrin gave a startled blink, as if her glare had physically struck him, then quickly straightened and turned to me with renewed theatrical flair.

  “So, Arthur…” he said, drawing out the words as he gestured wildly with both hands, like a conductor waiting for his soloist. “Do try to remember why we’re out here… to—”

  He mimed pulling something from the air, coaxing the answer from me.

  “To manifest your magic!”

  Before I could respond, Elunara cut in, tone sharp like a mother scolding her child.

  “Oh, give it a rest, Veldrin. He’s not going to learn magic by you shouting it at him, you should know better.”

  Bromm, ever efficient, cracked a few teeth from the fallen ghouls and tucked them into a pouch without a word. Then, we were off again.

  The path ahead felt different, heavier somehow. The forest no longer felt like a quiet observer, but something watching us from all sides. The deeper we went, the more unwelcome it felt.

  Before I could guess how far we’d come, we left the path and veered into the forest proper. The towering trees blotted out the sun entirely, casting the world in perpetual twilight.

  The underbrush thickened, and with it came the telltale glow of bioluminescent flora. Tiny flickers of purples and greens dotted the foliage. I kept my eyes peeled for Glimmergill—one, two, three… I’d found a dozen in less than what I would guess was twenty minutes. They were everywhere.

  As we pressed deeper, Bromm called me over with a short wave, an all-too-familiar gesture by now. His knife was drawn and pointed at a strange-looking plant near the base of a tree. The stem was a dark, almost black green, and the flower cap hadn’t bloomed. It hung downward, heavy and ominous.

  “Widow Sap,” he said simply. “Makes a foul poison, slow paralysis if it gets into your blood.”

  He glanced at me, then continued, “Make sure you harvest it from the base. The petals release the toxin when touched, wet, sticky stuff, so keep your blade under it and squeeze the bulb.”

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  Bromm slid his knife beneath the drooping flower cap and gave the base a firm pinch. A thick, dark ichor oozed out, running slowly down the blade. It clung like syrup at first, then began to harden, turning tacky and resin-like, almost like tree sap. Within seconds, a faint, glistening film of poison coated the metal.

  He held it up for me to see.

  “Stays potent for a bit, but don’t expect it to last forever. Works best fresh. There’s a patch here, so go on, harvest a few.”

  He pointed toward the nearby cluster of drooping plants.

  “When you pack ’em, lay the petals facing upward. Last thing you want is that sap leaking onto your gear.”

  I harvested a half-dozen and stacked them neatly in my pack before we moved on, heading deeper into the forest.

  Elunara’s staff began to pulse faintly as she walked. I couldn’t tell what she was doing, but it was clear she was channeling something. Whatever it was, it didn’t slow her down, she moved through the dense flora with effortless grace, as if the forest itself made way for her.

  Then, without a sound, a small purple owl, no bigger than my outstretched hand, fluttered down and perched on her shoulder. It had tiny antlers and unusually small eyes for an owl, giving it a strange, otherworldly charm. Elunara turned her head and whispered something to it, though I couldn’t make out the words. A moment later, the owl gave a single hoot and took off into the canopy, disappearing into the glowing foliage above.

  “Did you just talk to that bird?” I asked, still trying to process what I’d seen.

  Elunara glanced back at me, her expression calm. “Yes. The ruins we’re heading to haven’t been explored in quite some time. The forest’s reclaimed most of it, which makes it difficult to spot…”

  She paused, then smiled faintly.

  “But not so difficult that the sons and daughters of the forest can’t find it.”

  Now that was cool.

  Magic in this world seemed almost boundless. Between Veldrin and Elunara, I was already neck-deep in things I barely understood. It was overwhelming, but I was here. Right now.

  Still, it was hard to come to terms with it all. Back on Earth, magic didn’t exist. It was fiction, fantasy.

  But here?

  Here, it was real. Tangible. And I wanted to understand it. I needed to, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  A low, guttural growl broke through the stillness, snapping me back to the present. Bob was frozen, his body stiff, hackles raised, feet planted firm like he was bracing for an earthquake.

  Then—

  Whispers.

  Not natural ones. Not wind, not birds, not voices. These sounded wrong—slick, oily, like something whispered through teeth that didn’t belong in any sane mouth.

  The ground trembled beneath our boots.

  A massive shape tore through the brush ahead, exploding from the undergrowth in a chaos of snapping branches and flung debris.

  “BONE-TANGLE!” Bromm roared.

  The creature convulsed as it moved, its entire mass twitching like it was stuck in its own death throes, spasming, pulsing, vibrating with every lurching step.

  At first, I couldn’t make sense of it. But the longer I stared, the more it came into focus.

  It wasn’t a single creature. It was many.

  A massive, heaving mound of Wither Ghouls, flesh, bone, and rotting vines all twisted together into one abominable mass. Limbs jutted out at unnatural angles. Decayed fleshed faces, some still twitching, stared blankly from within the tangled horror, half-buried in the shifting mass.

  And despite its size, it moved with the same erratic, stuttering motion as a single Wither Ghoul… just magnified.

  A walking corpse-storm. A nightmare stitched together by madness.

  Elunara raised her staff and cast again, those writhing vines from before shot forward, but this time, the mass didn’t even slow. The creature tore through them like wet paper, snapping them apart before they could tighten.

  It surged toward us, a thunderous lurch of rotting limbs and bone. For something so bloated and mangled, it was fast. Each step slammed into the ground like a battering ram, sending tremors through the earth beneath our feet.

  Veldrin, still mid-channel, stood firm, arms raised, eyes wide, lips moving in sharp, ancient syllables. Just as the creature loomed closer, he completed the spell with a sudden twist and flourish.

  A blazing arc of red-orange energy ripped through the air toward the beast.

  It struck.

  And for a moment, it seemed to fizzle, just a hiss of steam and sizzling flesh.

  But then the spell melted into the creature’s mass, like lava poured into rotted clay. The Bone-Tangle groaned, a wet whistling sound resonated from its core, and its entire form began to shift. Bubble. Swell.

  Veins of glowing red traced through its flesh like molten rivers, pulsing brighter, brighter—

  Then it exploded.

  A thunderous crack split the air, and the creature burst apart, spraying twisted, shrieking Wither Ghouls in every direction like shrapnel made of flesh and bone. Limbs flew. Screams rang. The earth shook under the sudden rain of undead.

  I ducked just in time to avoid what I think was half a spine.

  Veldrin blinked once.

  Then said flatly, “Oops.”

  Just one word.

  But it echoed in my skull like a funeral bell.

  No time to think.

  We ran.

  Elunara took point, her staff blazing with light as she led us through an ever-twisting labyrinth of trees. Behind us, a wave of twitching Wither Ghouls poured through the woods, flesh and bone animated by madness, semi-sentient... Relentless.

  I spun, raising my shield just in time to catch one lunging from behind. Steel met rotted meat with a sickening crunch. I drove my blade forward, skewering it through the chest, then turned to bash another away with the rim of my shield.

  There were too many.

  As chaotic and uncoordinated as they were, sheer numbers were tipping the scale. All it would take was one lucky swipe, one stumble, and the rest would bury us.

  Elunara suddenly veered right, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch. Overhead, the familiar hoot of her owl echoed through the trees, frantic, panicked, and repeating.

  Ahead of us, something began to rise out of the forest floor, a mound, but not entirely organic. Stone jutted through the moss and roots, shaped by hands long gone. It wasn’t just a hill… it was a ruin.

  The owl swooped ahead and landed on what remained of a ledge, hooting furiously as it flapped its wings. I could just make out the outline of an entrance, an arched gap beneath crumbled stonework. A tower, once. Grand, maybe even imposing in its time. Now, it looked more like a forgotten tomb.

  “GET IN!” Veldrin bellowed.

  We didn’t need to be told twice.

  One by one, we scrambled through the archway. I was the last to reach it, nearly tripping over my own feet as I ducked inside. Just as I crossed the threshold, Veldrin let loose his spell.

  A surge of raw energy blasted past my face, searing the air with a roaring streak of heat and color. The force of it nearly knocked me flat. I stumbled forward and landed hard on my stomach, skidding across stone and dust.

  Behind me, the entrance exploded in light and sound. The archway, and what was left of the tower’s roof, collapsed in on itself, a rain of debris sealing us inside. Rubble crashed down, choking off the light, the sound, the shrieks of the ghouls. Stone ground against stone. Then… silence.

  Well, almost silence.

  I could still hear the wet, slapping sound of limbs battering at the blocked entry. The ghouls were trying to squeeze through what little space remained, but the ruin held fast.

  There was no way they were getting in.

  But then the realization hit me.

  How the hell were we getting out?

  I pushed myself upright, brushing dirt from my new clothes with a groan, then shot Veldrin a look sharp enough to cut steel. He stood nearby, rubbing the back of his head, trying his best to look innocent—and failing miserably.

  “We made it,” Elunara said, her voice calm despite the chaos we’d just escaped.

  I turned to face the interior of the ruin. The base of the tower stretched wider than I expected, ancient stone walls wrapped in moss and decay, with old roots clutching the corners like skeletal fingers. But what caught my attention was what lay in the center.

  A staircase.

  It didn’t spiral upward toward some lookout or mage’s perch.

  It led down.

  This was it.

  My first dungeon.