The dust from the ancient path's guardian's thunderous collapse had not yet fully settled when the turbulent swirl of star‑shard remnants and tainted blight energy began to calm. Raine Morningstar leaned against the rough stone wall, gasping deeply—each breath a burn, each inhale a reminder of having cheated death.
He could feel the cold star‑stone warming faintly in his palm, as though responding to the violent drain he had just endured.
Karrion the Iron‑Anvil dropped to the ground, beard unkempt and face lined with exhaustion. He pounded his numb chest. "Bah! My old bones… almost gave out! That monstrosity packed one heck of a punch!"
Thalia leaned against the shadows a short distance away, her hood obscuring most of her face, only her pale jaw and tightly pressed lips visible. Her breathing was sharper than usual, and her fingers trembled around her staff. She, too, had paid dearly for binding the guardian.
Raine's gaze drifted past the fallen guardian's wreckage toward the narrowing passage beyond. It no longer looked like a mere corridor but a broader opening leading upward. The light pouring through it was sickly—an unnatural, viscous gray‑green that clashed with the dry, dusty corridor they had just left.
"Looks like… we've arrived," Raine rasped.
Karrion followed his gaze, face darkening. "Corruption Forest… smells like a dwarf who's vomited in the cellar after too many ales, with rotten mushrooms on top." He rose to his feet, brushing dust from his cloak. "Let's go, lad. The sooner we find the way to Star‑fall City, the sooner we get out of this blasted place."
The three carefully stepped over the guardian's remains and moved toward the warped, eerie light of the exit.
With each step, the air grew heavier, chillier, and damp with a sickly sweetness of rot, as if the world itself were decaying. Shadows flickered abnormally in that light, dancing and shifting in maddening patterns that strained the eyes.
At last they emerged, setting foot on the true soil of Corruption Forest.
Raine's stomach churned at the sight. Once a thriving woodland, now everything lay twisted. Trees stood blackened or ashen; thick, foul‑smelling black sap oozed down their trunks. Branches bent and writhed like dying arms, bearing clusters of gray fungal growths that pulsed faintly. The ground was slick with oily black moss, squelching underfoot as though they might sink. Silence reigned—no birdsong, no insects, only an oppressive weight, as if some vast, unseen horror watched them from the shadows.
"So… this is Corruption Forest?" Raine managed, voice trembling. His star‑blood recoiled from the forest's malice, an icy nausea crawling from feet to scalp.
"Worse than the legends," Karrion growled, tightening his grip on the axe. The dwarf's innate stoutness seemed strained here; his face was a scowl of dark anticipation. "Keep your wits. Every step in this wood could be your last."
Thalia's reaction was stranger. Silent, pale, she appeared more… at home in this nightmare. Unlike Raine's obvious distress or Karrion's taut vigilance, she walked with a disquieting calm, as if used to trailing the edges of such horrors.
"The corruption here is… rampant," she said softly, voice low so as not to disturb unseen things. "Make as little noise as possible, and avoid anything that looks especially… vivid."
Their first wary steps fully entered the forest's blighted embrace.
Corruption pressed on them like tangible weight. Raine's temples throbbed painfully; his star‑blood, already fragile, felt frozen, sluggish—and on the brink of another backlash. He fought to quell the restless magic surging in his veins.
Karrion led the way, cleaving black tendril‑like vines blocking the path. His stride was steady, eyes sharp, scanning for threats.
Thalia brought up the rear, footsteps silent, shadows clinging to her cloak, masking their passage. She appeared to listen to something no one else could hear—perhaps the forest's own heartbeat.
After roughly half an hour, their oppressive silence cracked with a sickening scuttle.
"Something's coming!" Karrion snarled, raising his shield.
From a nearby thicket—oozing dark sap—a swarming mass poured out like a black tide.
They were beetles the size of fists, their shells warped by corruption into oily black armor encrusted with pustules and jagged spines. Scarlet lights danced in their compound eyes; corrosive drool hissed as they advanced in erratic leaps.
"Corruption stinger‑beetles! Watch their venom!" Thalia warned.
Raine fought nausea, drawing his sword and invoking what little starlight he could. A feeble glow spattered his blade as he slashed one beetle aside—only to have it right itself and lunge again.
"Damn these things are tough!" Raine spat.
Karrion bellowed, slamming beetles aside with his shield and crushing clusters with his axe, black ichor spattering rock into pulp. But beetles pressed in wave after wave, clambering onto shield and armor.
"Physical attacks barely scratch them!" Thalia cried, firing silent shadow bolts that disintegrated foes in pools of black ichor. The magic worked—but there were too many of them, and each spell sapped her remaining strength.
The skirmish was brief but chaotic. Beetle venom sizzled on rock, melting grooves; Raine's sword glanced off hardened shells; Karrion's axe pounded yet more beetles. Only Thalia's magic kept them from overwhelming.
"We can't keep this up—too many!" Karrion roared.
"Follow me!" Thalia's eyes glinted with determination as she shifted tactics. She conjured a thin shadow‑veil around the three of them. The beetles faltered, confused by the warped senses.
"Move!" Thalia commanded, sprinting toward a rocky knoll to their right.
Raine and Karrion obeyed, scrambling up onto a cluster of boulders where the ground was firmer and easier to defend. The horde, denied their target, scuttled back into the undergrowth with frustrated clicks.
Breathing hard, they leaned against cold stone. The infection of this forest's lower life forms had almost cost them dearly.
"Right," Karrion panted, pulling rune‑carved stones and a pouch of powder from his pack. "We need some defenses before the next horror finds us."
He set the stones into crevices around their small ledge and dusted the runes with powder, chanting in the old dwarf‑tongue. One by one, the stones glowed a soft ochre, forming an invisible ward to keep lesser corrupted creatures at bay—and to warn of intruders.
"How long'll it hold?" Raine asked.
"Depends," Karrion shrugged. "A few hours, I reckon—enough for us to mend, eat, and get moving."
They ate in tense silence. Thalia rested, eyes closed, but her pale face and sudden coughs spoke of her own weakness.
When they resumed their march—now forewarned by Karrion's runes—they skirted minor infestations, yet the forest's stench and oppression only deepened.
After another stretch of uneasy travel, Raine halted mid‑step.
"What is it?" Karrion asked, axe at the ready.
Raine frowned, listening. The wind sighed through warped branches, but beneath it all lurked a faint chorus of murmurs—overlapping, sibilant, filled with malice and temptation, burrowing at his mind.
"Do you hear that?" Raine asked.
Karrion and Thalia paused, straining, but only the wind spoke back to them.
"Nothing but the breeze," Karrion muttered. "Maybe you're over‑tired."
Raine opened his mouth to protest, but the whispers faded as if they'd never been. Had he imagined them?
He glanced at Thalia. Her hooded face was unreadable, but he saw her fingers tighten around her staff. She, too, seemed to sense something—yet she spoke no word, only nodded forward, urging them on.
Raine clenched his jaw and pressed ahead, though the phantom whispers lodged in his thoughts, seeds of dread that foretold deeper dangers. Perhaps Morcos's eyes already watched them through these corrupt trees.