Chương 75: Threestone Forest

The 4th day of the month of the Osmanthus. According to Pewter, the season had officially changed over to autumn. As if to commemorate the occasion, tree leaves everywhere had yellowed seemingly overnight. A far too rapid and dramatic a change for Jordan's Earthling sensibilities to square, but maybe that was just how the Vesselia devs had programmed it. The Gym Rats had departed the Padma estate with its noble lord's blessing.

Hanza had listened to their theories about Yellowspring Grotto with a polite yet neutral smile, giving no indication whether he'd bought into any of it. He had, however, left them with a hand-drawn map as well as some… interesting parting words.

"Heaven forgive my powerlessness, and may the two of you forgive my asking you to risk what I myself would not. Cannot. My only comfort is the [Emblem] upon both of your persons—proof if nothing else of your experience in overcoming extraordinary challenges. I salute your courage, adventurers, and eagerly await your swift and safe return." To this, Hanza had added the palm-over-fist gesture as well as the deepest bow humanly possible.

Such was the nobleman's sincere anguish that Jordan had been compelled to return the gesture, as best he could. And now, here he and Pewter were, trekking into the thickest, gloomiest parts of Threestone Forest with Hanza's hand-drawn map as their only guide. They'd started early today despite their long evening in the library. Even so, the trees here grew so dense as to throw the whole place into perpetual night.

"What do you think Shaman Padma meant?" Pewter struck up a conversation as the two Mountain Men whacked and hacked their way through a thicket—a welcome distraction from the oppressive gloom.

"What are you referring to, Pewter?"

"When he said that he cannot risk himself for the quest. Before that, I hadn't thought anything of a noble lord choosing to delegate rather than potentially put himself in harm's way. That just seemed to be the way of things for a man of his position. But the manner by which he spoke on it earlier… almost like there's some sort of barrier or shackles preventing him from venturing into the forest…"

"Or"—the thought suddenly popped into Jordan's mind, ostensibly out of nowhere—"preventing him from leaving the estate …" Both men fell silent, each mulling the maybe-a-riddle in their mind. Around them, the forest only seemed to grow darker. Several hours passed, mostly in uneasy silence. Jordan was relieved to finally come across a shallow creek, an important landmark as illustrated by Hanza's map.

Here, the tree line broke just enough to offer a glimpse of the sky, the sun shining directly overhead to indicate roughly midday.

"Right," Jordan panted, pulling out [Rampart's Map] and its rotating arrowhead to serve as a compass.

"That was the hard part. Now, we just need to follow this creek north, and it should lead us straight to Yellowspring Grotto."" Yellowspring," Pewter echoed in a thoughtful murmur.

"That's another inauspicious symbol in a quest full of them. I'm reminded of another folktale from my childhood. About a mass grave of Leafeller rebels killed during the Earth Sky Uprising. Story has it that their bereaved dug and dug, only to turn up an endless pile of bodies. Until they inadvertently struck a vein, and out bubbled groundwater, dyed yellow by the headwraps worn by the dead rebels. From then on, some people would use the phrase'yellow spring' as a euphemism for the afterlife."

"Were you into horror stories as a kid, Pewter," Jordan asked jokingly, trying to sound a lot more nonchalant than he felt, "or did your folks make it their mission to warn you off ever traveling to Leafell?"

"I'm being serious, Jordan! What we're doing right now—deathtouch, trickster spirits, and willingly heading to a place called Yellowspring Grotto —it's an ill thing. A most ill thing."

"Do you want to turn back?"

"No!" The answer was prompt and colored by a touch of real indignation.

"Those people need us, Jordan! And they can ill afford for us to waste precious time jumping at every shadow."

"Too right. So, what say we crack on?" The Gym Rats followed the creek upstream. Toward the northernmost corner of the forest where two mountain faces supposedly met. Along the way, however, they came across more shadows to test their resolve. What felt like a reprieve from the darkness proved to be a source of more creepiness. The sunlight slipped through the rustling leaves to play upon the water, distracting Jordan with flickering flashes in the corner of his vision.

On several occasions, he glanced in annoyance at the gentle creek, only for his gaze to wander onto the woods on the opposite shore. The second time he did this, he froze in his tracks, causing Pewter to bump into his cauldron.

"What is it, Jordan?"

"Nothing," Jordan said quickly, perhaps too quickly.

"At least… I think it was nothing. Let's keep moving." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. But the third time this happened, he could no longer pretend that it was nothing.

"Did you see that?"

"What?"

"I thought I saw… a figure. Dressed in white. Slipped into the woods as soon as I turned to look." Pewter frowned as he followed his companion's gaze.

"Is it possible that you're only imagining things?"

"Very possible. In fact, I'm sure that's exactly what's happening. Let's keep moving." Jordan did keep moving. As he did, he kept his eyes pointed straight ahead, determined never to look upon the opposite shore again. But the lights kept distracting him, and soon, flickers of white began to appear on his side of the creek lined only by dense trees. Impossible to explain away as a trick of the light. Jordan really wanted to look, but he knew it would be a mistake to do so.

The effort of fighting the temptation was making him sweat, giving him palpitations. He wasn't sure for how much longer he could bear it. To make matters worse, Pewter began to hallucinate, too.

"Did you hear that?" the Tetherer asked, grabbing the rim of the Heavenly Cauldron to make its bearer stop. Jordan did stop, but dared not turn his head in either direction.

"What is it?"

"I thought I heard… a voice. A woman's voice. Calling for someone, I think, but I can't make out the name." Jordan forced himself to stand and listen. In the complete silence, he found that the forest wasn't silent at all. The gentle babble of the creek. The rustling of leaves. The constant hum of insects hiding in the undergrowth. He heard a lot of things, but thankfully, none of them belonged to a woman calling out an unintelligible name.

"I'm hearing nothing," Jordan reported, but stopped short of suggesting that his friend might be imagining things.

"It stopped for me, as well. Let us keep moving, Jordan." They kept moving. Only because to stand still was even scarier. Jordan couldn't speak for Pewter, but he felt his own mind breaking down in real time, frayed by the fear of shadows unseen, unknown, and undefinable. Yet, when all seemed lost, [Heaven] deigned to offer words of aid. Constitution DC 15: success Xihe:"From the earth you are born, upon the earth you walk 'til you last draw breath, and to the earth you must one day return.

Should you wish to grab hold of your own mortality, seek first to bolster your connection to mother earth." The God of Constitution was as roundabout in their message as ever. Jordan was frankly getting a little sick of riddles, but right now, solving this one felt like a matter of life and death. Bolster my connection to mother earth? What does that even— It came to him in a flash of recollection. An example shown by a spellcaster perhaps as in touch with mortality as was humanly possible.

"Jordan? What are you doing?"

"Taking off my shoes."

"W—why?"

"So I can tell this forest to stop messing with me!" The ground was chilly and made damp by its proximity to water. It was the kind of yucky outdoorsy nonsense Earthling Jordan would've rejected out of hand. But Stormvaster Jordan in the here and now cared only about overcoming his fear of ghosts and creepy illusions. To that end, he let his bare feet really soak in all that earthy moisture. Nature DC 15: success It began with a sensation somehow even stranger than seeing ghosts in the corner of his eye.

Namely that of sinking into the ground. And not in the sense of the dirt being quicksand and pulling Jordan under. But more like the whole world had become a pair of shoes, wrapping around his bare feet as smoothly and comfortably as the slippers he used to wear back home. Funky. Is this how it would feel to, I dunno, cast [Speak with Dead] while holding a piece of gate-blind mana? Jordan tried to move. Found it a little difficult and sluggish, what with his feet now being weighed down by the entire world.

But as he concentrated on the connection between skin and dirt, the world deigned to meet him halfway. He began to walk, step by plodding step. Feeling with each step how nature shifted around him—forest, creek, leaves, insects, and all. Ah, yes. He finally understood what Xihe had been getting at. This is me. Mortal. Firmly rooted to the earth. My time hasn't come yet, so I have no reason to fear the spirits trying to lure me away. The hallucinations didn't go away entirely.

The lights continued to flicker, and the ghostly shadows continued to dance around the edges. The difference was that they no longer bothered Jordan. The ghosts could try to scare him all they wanted; he was secure in his connection to mother earth. Soon Pewter followed suit, and achieved similar results. The Gym Rats forged ahead with renewed confidence. A pair of scruffy Mountain Men who needed not fear even the thickest, gloomiest parts of their mountain.

"I think that there might be it." It took several more hours of barefoot hiking. Night had fallen by the time the Gym Rats made it to the northernmost corner of Threestone Forest, where a nameless creek flowed from a nameless spring, beside which yawned the mouth of a sunless cave. Yellowspring Grotto. The trees here were sparser, with a sort of bent and flattened appearance… like they'd been swept aside by strong winds that had passed through only this particular section of the forest. Strange.

But perhaps no stranger than everything else Jordan and Pewter had lived through for the last several days. The Gym Rats exchanged a nod, then approached the cave opening. As they did, the ground beneath them seemed to fall away, severing their connection to mother earth. All around, the trees swayed in warning, bending ever closer toward the heedless mortals in their midst.