They soon, and mournfully, parted ways with the prairie, and once more plunged into the much darker forest, headed for the Wolf's Den, their second boss fight and which should've been their third.

They didn't know what to expect of that fight, and of all the green wolves that they were supposed to be encountering on their way there, or if they would even be there, but for the moment, with the memory of the warm breeze and hot sun lingering across their cheeks, and the discovery of Gad's affinity, those worries felt, for the moment, distant and small.

The woods were also much livelier here, and they spotted birds, and tiny red mammals scurrying up tree trunks and jumping from branch to branch, gliding silently through the forest's still air on translucent membranes that spread out from their bodies, attached to both legs and arms.

"There goes another one!" Rel whispered, pointing it out for Tuk.

"Woah! Look at it go!" Tuk breathed.

Nar looked up, but he either didn't look in the right direction or was too late to see it. Still, their happiness was infectious, and he couldn't help but smile at their childishly excited expressions and gasps every time they spotted one of the little animals.

A few minutes later, they came upon a depression in the forest floor, and below, they spotted a golden maze of light brown and white trees, different from the ones they had been walking under so far.

"Is that the Wolf's Den?" Tuk whispered.

Kur nodded. "It should be somewhere in there, but…"

He searched the woods around them, which so far, had shown no signs of even a single of the green furred beasts, much less of the packs of up to ten that they should've had to fight their way through.

"What now?" Viy asked, glancing around the silent wood.

"Forward," Kur said. "Let's just see what we find down there for now."

They formed a single file to go climb down a narrow track that led down into the forest of golden beams of light, and soon, they wandered amidst the new kind of trees.

Nar glanced up as he stepped beneath their thick, sprawling branches. Instead of needles, these trees sported dense foliage in various shapes, and while some leaves were dainty and pointy, others were flat and almost looked like hands with stubby, curled fingers.

The ground they walked upon was even softer under these new trees, and here and there, a leaf silently flickered through the air, on its way to join all the others that carpeted the forest floor in soft greens, yellows and browns.

Nar tracked one such leaf as it danced through the air at his side, lading upon its fallen comrades with nary a sound, and a beam of light suddenly seared into his eyes, and he squinted, looking up.

The dungeon seemed to vanish around him.

Light beamed through the shifting leaves above his head, setting them to translucent golden green. A gentle breeze picked up the forest canopy, and everything became a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of golden and green, light beams and dots dancing across the forest ceiling without rhyme or reason.

Nar reached a hand towards the bright leaves, his eyes tunneling on their golden translucence, and he felt… A yearning? A need?

He couldn't put it into words but he felt drained. Stuck. Reaching out for something he couldn't explain, and something he neither knew nor understood, but for a moment, there was something within him. A certainty. A meaning. And yet, it was shallow and incomplete. The barest threads of a whole yet to form or be revealed…

His heart tightened in his chest, loss gripping him, and Nar became aware of reality around him once more, and he raised a hand to his chest, his eyes stinging.

Not here… he thought. It's not here.

What wasn't there? He had no idea, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that what he sought wasn't there, amidst the golden beams of light and the green lit canopy of a thousand greens above his head. Perhaps it was not even to be found in that dungeon at all…

"Nar?" someone called him softly.

Nar looked up and found Jul and Kur staring at him. They were all staring at him.

The party had formed a circle around him and…

Tuk?

The ring tosser held the same transfixed, intense look that Gad had when staring at the stream, and Nar pursed his lips, swallowing his jealousy. Tuk was unlocking his affinity, he just knew it. And yet, for him… There was only that loss within him, that gaping hole and need that he did not know when he would fulfill.

"Did it work?" Jul asked him.

Nar shook his head.

"Was it the light?" Kur asked.

Nar shrugged. "It was something… But I-I don't know. I have no idea."

"Nothing at all?" Cen asked, grimacing in compassion.

Nar shook his head. "I just looked up and I thought there was…"

What? He asked himself, then he shook his head again.

"It's not here. Whatever it is, I won't find it here."

"Here, or here in the dungeon?" Gad asked him.

"Yes… No. I don't know."

"That's alright," Kur said, gripping his shoulder. "It'll come. Don't worry. Some affinities are just rarer and harder to unlock."

"Yeah…" Nar said.

"Come on. Sit down," Mul grunted at him, pointing to a comfortable looking spot where a bunch of tree roots interlaced to form a sort of natural seat. "Relax. Worrying about it isn't going to do anything. Just got to take a step at a time."

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Yeah… Thanks," Nar said, sitting down.

He looked up at the shifting greens and goldens above him, and again, he felt an echo of that yearning… But with it also came the certainty that this wasn't it.

Is it light? He asked himself.

He had never thought of light as a possibility before, nor its opposite, darkness. Nor, for that matter, the strange one that lived at their intersection, shadow. Light was the obvious guess here, and it could even make sense, given how driven he had been to find true light and color throughout his Climb, and even before that. And yet… It didn't feel quite right to Nar. It didn't feel complete… Not at all.

He had felt as though he was staring through tiny holes on a wall of darkness, light beaming from beyond it, but… The light was in some way a part of it, perhaps, but not the whole of it, and perhaps not even an important part of it… Just a piece in the puzzle he needed to solve.

He sighed and peeled his eyes from the lit up canopy above his head. He felt strangely drained, and he lowered his face to his hands, leaning on his knees, to close his weary eyes.

Above them, the breeze blew and shifting golden lights colored the forest, and a few moments later, Tuk burst out laughing.

"Yes!" he shouted. "I did it!"

"Woohoo!" Viy shouted, slapping his back.

"Congratulations, man!" Rel said, clapping hard.

"Hey!" Jul hissed at them. "Hush!"

"Oops!" Rel said, while Viy looked away, avoiding the quam's irate stare.

"Did it work?" Kur asked, almost needlessly.

Tuk nodded. "And it was so simple too…"

"Don't say anything else, alright?" Kur warned him. "We don't want to risk ruining it."

"Yes… Of course," Tuk said, looking almost angry at the suggestion. "Don't worry, I'll wait!"

"Good," Kur said, smiling. "And congrats, man. You did it!"

"Yeah… About time," Tuk said. "Did Nar also…"

"No," Nar said. "It wasn't it."

"Oh, shit! I'm so sorry man!" Tuk said, rushing towards him.

Nar stood up and gave the trugger a fierce embrace instead. "Don't worry about it, Tuk. It's another step in the right direction. And congratulations, man! Whatever it is, I think you will make it awesome!"

Tuk laughed quietly, squeezing him back. "Yeah, I think I will! And I can't wait to show it to you guys!"

"Can't wait to know what it is too!" Nar said, smiling back at the ring tosser as they disentangled.

But Jul suddenly stiffened and raised a hand.

"Is it them?" Kur whispered.

Jul shook her head, frowning.

"Something is coming… My [Hearing] is getting blocked," she said, unsure.

"What do you mean?" Gad asked, raising her shield and looking around them.

"It's coming from that way," Jul said, pointing with two hands. "It's not an enemy, though… It's something else, I think."

"[Instinct]?" Kur asked.

Jul shook her head again.

"Well, that's the direction we need to go, so I guess we'll find out soon enough," Kur said, glancing at Gad. The tank nodded at him and stepped forward, shield held at the ready, and the formation quickly fell into step behind her.

*********

"I see something up ahead," Jul whispered, about thirty silent minutes later.

The long shafts of golden light had since gone, and through the little gaps in between the leaves and branches, the sky was growing darker and darker, heavy with blackened clouds.

"What is it?" Kur asked, raising a hand to make them all stop.

"I… I don't know," Jul said. "It's like clouds, I think… But they're on the ground?"

"Fog," Kur whispered, his eyes going wide. "How far?"

"We'll be there in another five minutes," Jul said.

"And another five on top of that to den… Damn it," Kur muttered.

"Is it bad?" Gad asked their party leader.

"Depends on the fog," Kur said. "Jul?"

"I can't see or hear anything beyond it," Jul said. "Nothing on [Instinct] either."

"Is this supposed to happen?" Mul asked.

"Not at this hour of the day," Kur said. "It's too early. Or too late."

Gad craned her neck to peer through the tree trunks, then returned her eyes to their party leader.

"Nothing we can do but to continue?" she asked.

"Yeah… Let's just keep going," Kur said. "But let's tighten the formation. There could be anything in that fog."

"The wolves?" Tuk asked.

"Or the coyotes?" Nar added.

"Maybe. Though if they were around, they should've shown up by now," Kur said. "As for the coyotes, they shouldn't leave their area in the deep forest but… Let's just be ready for anything."

They closed ranks and followed quietly after Gad's towering bulk, and within moments, a blueish grayness wafted from the trees up ahead, and soon, they were engulfed by it.

Even with his [Hearing] and [Sight], Nar could neither see nor hear much further than their immediate circle. The trees loomed over them like beasts ready to pounce upon them, their now gnarled shadows casting ominous silhouettes all around them from within the fog.

"Cold?" Mul asked.

"A bit," Cen said.

It is colder, Nar noticed, passing his hand through the mist. Wet too.

"Armor," Kur whispered. "We should be almost there."

Gray, blue-purple, orange, red and bronze, as well as shadowy armor flashed mutely into existence. Even Mul's usually bright, burning armor looked dimmer in the fog that surrounded them, and the party proceeded in a deep silence.

"It's over there," Jul whispered a few moments later. "And I think it's empty."

Kur sighed and eased his broad shoulders, straightening his back.

"I feared it would," he said, his voice rising.

A large rocky overhang emerged from the mist, vines draping down from its heights, somewhere between 80 and a 100-feet high, and water dripped from the knotted clumps of foliage, sizzling on their armors as they walked into the half-cave, and examined its semi-protected interior.

"Nothing's been here at all," Rel said, getting down on one knee to grab a handful of leaves and sniff at them. "Doesn't even smell of anything other than dampness."

"Okay, what in the Pile is going on?" Tuk asked. "We can't just ignore this stuff anymore. The dungeon was supposed to have been reset, no?"

"Yes," Kur said, his tone low. "But I think it didn't."

"Is the guide just wrong?" Rel asked. "I can see all the brown layered caps from here. We're supposed to gather them, right?"

"We are, but…" the party leader looked around, his expression conflicted.

"Maybe something else happened," Gad suddenly said. "Maybe the dungeon just didn't reset properly."

"What do you mean?" Mul asked, turning his red irises up at the tank. "It either resets or it doesn't."

"But if you stop to think about it, that is the most likely explanation," Gad said.

"And not that the guide is wrong?" Viy asked.

"She's right…" Cen said. "Think about it. Would the Offices of Delving really sell such a wrong guide?"

Kur shook his head. "The guides are not supposed to be wrong, they're just less or more detailed, depending on how much you want to pay..."

"And I doubt they would screw up the locations and existence of the actual dungeon bosses," Cen said. "Right?"

"That would be very bad," Kur said, nodding. "The Explorer's don't mess around with this kind of stuff. Sure, they have a monopoly over almost every single Labyrinth map there is, but they take pride in their work, and the punishment for leading delvers to their deaths… As well as the profit drops resulting from any errors… It would be huge."

"More because of the second than the first," Mul said, his tone flat. "Fine. Imagine that the dungeon didn't reset properly, then. How is that even possible? This isn't a dying dungeon."

"No, it's not," Kur agreed. "Dungeons die slowly, and by the time you start seeing discrepancies like this, the dungeon will have long been classified as a dying dungeon. It's not something that just happens in between resets… And it would've affected the whole cluster if that was the case."

He sighed, and glanced around the empty Wolf's Den, then across the walls, where myriads of skinny, tendril-like and round capped, brown mushrooms grew from, enjoying the heavy dampness within that rocky shelter. "Which means that I have no idea what in the Pile is going on."

"And what do we do about it?" Nar asked, scanning the deepening wall of blankness beyond the rock formation. "Do we just head for the final boss and hope it's there?"

"I think that's our best bet, yes," Kur said. "We're leaving the mushrooms. No more gathering or harvesting. Let's just head straight for the Goblin Camp, as it's more important for us to figure this out."

"Are we fighting them?" Gad asked.

"Only if we have to," Kur said. "Unfortunately, we do need to stick to our route, especially in this fog. We have no idea how far it stretches, nor how long it's going to last, so I don't want us getting lost."

"So, which way?" Nar asked. "Northeast?"

"More north than northeast, but yes," Kur said, deactivating his armor and checking his UI's compass. "And armors off. Let's conserve our aura. Just in case. We have no idea what we're about to find in this fog…"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.