The third day of the journey began in strained silence. The [Mother] refused to look at Eofe, distracting her son with questions and little games whenever his curious attention strayed to the Elf. Even the [Scribe] was especially engrossed in his books that morning. At least the Goblin appeared as unconcerned as ever.

  Eofe tried not to let it get to her. She told herself that these weren’t her people; that it didn’t matter what they thought of her. She didn’t even like most of them. Her self-affirmation was sabotaged by the fact that they were the only people around. She was alone out here, far from home and the wild, trapped behind the walls of civilization. Even in a wagon in the middle of nowhere, away from any city, she still felt its confines. She had come by choice, but she didn’t think she had much of one to begin with. It was either run away, or languish in the Fal until—

  She immediately pushed that unfinished thought out of her mind and buried it in a deep hole.

  Eofe’s mood soured throughout the day, exacerbated by continued boredom and a spiral of dark thoughts and nagging doubts. The surroundings outside did nothing to improve her mood. They had passed out of the scrublands at some point and had entered into the rocky hills that led up to the base of the Stonewall, where the least of the mountains loomed over the path ahead. The terrain was barren of all but a few meagre greens.

  Reprieve for her thoughts finally came at midday, though it proved to be an unpleasant distraction.

  It started with a dead animal on the side of the road. Hamish was squatting over the carcass as the wagon passed, grimly inspecting its wounds. Curiosity, isolation, and a budding rebellious streak spurred Eofe to ignore his warning to stay inside the wagon. She made sure her copper badge was neatly displayed on her chest before she walked up to him.

  “You’re supposed to stay in the wagon,” he chided anyways, immediately after she sidled up to his side.

  Eofe ignored him and leaned over to get a better look at the carcass. The creature was unidentifiable, its body so desiccated she couldn’t even tell its species. Little more than skin and bones remained. It could have been a deer or a cow for all she knew. The only apparent wounds were a series of circular pucker marks marring its side and gaping holes in its belly, each as big around as Eofe’s fist.

  “What did that?” she asked.

  Hamish shook his head. “I’ve no idea. Which can only mean one thing around these parts.” He stood up and gave Eofe a critical look. “You best stay in the wagon. I’m afraid this will be a busy day.”

  His words proved true not an hour later. While Eofe’s thoughts were still distracted by the mystery carcass, a bright light flashed ahead of the caravan, followed by a thundercrack echoing across the rocky hills. The sky was clear, so it was surely the sorcerer’s work. They soon came across the charred heap of flesh of some unrecognizable creature beside the road. Eofe attempted to study it as they passed, though by the time it had faded into the distance she still hadn’t the slightest idea what it was.

  Her curiosity was sated soon after when they encountered another beside this road, this one riddled with arrows and in much better condition. It appeared to have mostly pale skin, with a sparse covering of mangy bristles, and leaked black blood from its wounds. It was a bit larger than the Elf, close to the size of a small pony. It was difficult to discern much about its shape, as the creature’s limbs had twisted in on itself in its final moments, and its head was either missing or obscured. Eofe could not accurately count how many limbs it had, but she was certain there were more than four. A foul, acrid stench wafted off the monster’s corpse, and each of the passengers grimaced in disgust.

  “That’ll be one of the Flesh Shaper’s,” the Goblin said with a grim expression.

  “What is it?” Eofe asked, eager to engage with the only person willing to speak with her. Even if it was a Goblin.

  The little man shrugged. “They stopped bothering to name his creations a long time ago. He made too many of them, and few are alike.”

  Eofe wondered at the power of a man who could create such a creature, not just once, but enough to threaten much of Orith. So much that even a decade after his death, the shadow of his madness still hung over the region.

  “Was he Human?” she asked.

  “At first,” the Goblin replied. “Don’t know what he was by the end of it.”

  It was especially impressive for a Human to reach that level, who didn’t have thousands of years to build levels and strength. She suddenly had a terrible thought.

  “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “Oh, he’s dead alright,” the Goblin chuckled. “There’s no coming back from what those adventurers did to him; not that any God would bring him back anyway. I hear there weren’t any pieces left large enough for an ant to choke on. And before you ask, it was his real body for sure. It wasn’t a doppelganger, or a clone, or a simulacrum. They used every Skill in the book to confirm it. He’s dead as dead gets.”

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  Eofe frowned. “Then where are the monsters coming from?”

  “Nobody knows. Some think he set up his laboratory to run on its own after his death. Or maybe he had a secret apprentice. Believe it or not, the monsters we see these days are not nearly as bad as what we saw ten years ago,” the Goblin shuddered at whatever memory had just been dredged up. “Whoever or whatever is crafting in his place is not nearly at the same level he was.”

  Eofe mulled over the Goblin’s words as the day wore on. Further lightning strikes shook the hills in the distance and more of the dead creatures were seen scattered about the rocky terrain. Some were blackened and charred, others stuck with arrows, and a few had been smashed into a disgusting fleshy pulp. The occasional odd trumpeting could be heard between the sounds of fighting, an eerie cry that put Eofe on edge.

  It had to be said that Ulreth’s Pack was doing a good job taking care of the menace, since the rest of them had yet to see a live one. Still, Eofe gripped her bow tight and kept an arrow in hand. Her eyes darted between the road ahead and behind, and she cursed the canvas that covered the wagon and cut off her line of sight to either side.

  Her stress hadn’t abated in the slightest when the sky faded to a burnt orange on the horizon and the caravan finally stopped for the day. It all seemed worth it though when Eofe stepped out of the wagon and was blessed with the most beautiful sight she had seen in weeks.

  .

  And not one of the tamed and cultivated woods that surrounded the cities, but a real place of the wild. It was nothing compared to her home, where the trees rose like towers and civilization was a distant dream, but it was a blessing nonetheless. Its pinewood greens drew the Elf in with its tantalizing scent and she longed to sleep under its boughs.

  The caravan had settled into a ring in a circle of packed earth just outside the edge of the woods. The horses had been fed and watered before being tied off to the trees. They were close enough that Eofe could wander over to the tree line and listen to the pines rustling in a slight wind and the forest dwellers chirping and skittering within its borders. The road was sandwiched between the forest to the south and the hills leading up to the mountains to the north, so it looked like they would be skirting its edge when they continued their travels the next day.

  It was while she was gazing longingly into the trees, enjoying the scent of the wild and the feel of leaves and grass beneath her feet, that she detected a whiff of something terrible and familiar. She tried to sniff out the direction it came from. The odor grew stronger with every breath, until she took a deep breath and nearly choked on the stench. She immediately slapped a hand over her nose and mouth, then heard the footsteps coming up behind her.

  “Remind you of home?”

  Eofe whipped around to see Eathan looking as if he had just emerged from the one of the Hells. His face and clothes were splattered with black blood, still wet in places, and his mace dripped inky drops onto the ground. He held a friendly smile that looked out of place on such a hell-cast visage.

  “O’ owy,” she mumbled through her hand.

  Eathan blinked. “Come again?”

  Eofe removed her hand and coughed after inhaling another breath of the putrid smell.

  “Go away. You stink.”

  The cleric looked down at his stained clothes, seeming to take in his state for the first time. He at least had the good sense to look abashed at his presentation.

  “Ah, I apologize. I suppose I have become accustomed to the smell after enduring it all day. I had forgotten how terrible it was at first.”

  He bowed his head and retreated, moving to join his team by the wagons. Eofe watched him go with an expression of mild disgust, until she finally saw the state of the rest of the adventurers and upgraded it to outright horror.

  They looked absolutely vile.

  Hamish had a few of his own splatters of the black blood coating his clothing, though not nearly as much as Eathan. Kana looked the worst of the lot. Her dull grey armor had been stained a sticky black and her hammer’s head was so dark with the vile blood it looked as if it were made of obsidian. Only Eriden was clean. He actually looked exuberant and even wore a broad grin on his face.

  Eofe avoided the adventurers as the day faded to night and the group prepared for bed. The members of Ulreth’s Pack tactfully avoided the caravanners as well until they had each trickled off one by one to a nearby spring and returned somewhat clean. The stars were bright and the moon full that night, which was fortunate since Hamish refused to build a fire, citing the number of monsters they had encountered during the day.

  “Sleep close to the wagons,” he announced as the group was about to bed down for the night. “It’s rare to find so many of the Flesh Shaper’s monsters on this road. And we haven’t been very quiet in our approach.” He shot Eriden a reproachful look, though the sorcerer looked entirely unapologetic. “We are also far from the part of the Stonewall where most of his monsters emerge. For so many to have migrated this far, and still be in such numbers… I fear we may have a breeder.”

  Someone groaned.

  “What does that mean?” Eofe asked.

  “The Flesh Shaper made his monsters in batches,” Hamish answered, “and he never repeated the same experiment twice. You usually won’t ever find more than a few dozen of the same type. The exceptions are the breeders.”

  “Most of his monsters are sterile,” Eathan added to the side. “It’s the few that can breed that pose the greatest threat. There’s no telling how many of them there might be.”

  The group ate simple meals of dried meats and fruits before trickling off to bed. Eofe laid down in her armor, with her bow close and her knife in hand. She slept by the edge of the woods, near enough to enjoy the natural scent and the sound of the wild. The night quickly grew cold, a sign that the summer days may be ending soon. Eofe wrapped a scarf around her neck to stave off the chill. She miraculously drifted off to sleep despite the cold air and a sinking apprehension in her gut she just couldn’t push away.