Cold wispy fog heralded in the following morning. It swept across the ground with creeping tendrils, further obscuring the forest. Arek’s clothes were thoroughly damp by the time he was thinking coherent thought. Ming, who had taken the last watch, was amusing herself by sending a ball of pure magic darting in and out of the white wall.

The orc swiped at some of the fog near his face, but he only succeeded in pushing it around. Arek grumbled and rose to his feet, rolling his neck to get rid of some of the stiffness.

He nodded to Ming, then stepped a few feet away from the party to take care of morning buisness on top of some bushes. Malissa and Belmont had both awoken by the time he returned.

“It appears to be normal fog,” Belmont reported, shooing it away from himself like it was a dog. “A very dense fog. It’ll be even harder to see where we’re going now.”

“We could wait until it fades,” Malissa offered, wringing out her thin silken clothing with a small frown.

“That might not be a good idea,” Ming said. “The forest is creepy. I think something was watching us last night.”

They all turned towards her.

“What?” Belmont asked, lowering his voice.

“There were a few times that I felt like we were being watched,” Ming repeated. “I could have been imagining it, though. It happened after I got a snack from my pie hat.”

“A hungry animal, perhaps?” Arek offered.

“We haven’t seen much in the way of wildlife aside from that rabbit,” Belmont said, rubbing his chin. “Gah. Not being able to set up defenses unnerves me. We need to get back to a city.”

“Agreed,” Malissa muttered, giving up on getting the water out of her clothes and letting out a sigh. “There’s no point waiting around to see if Ming saw something or not. We’ll assume she did, and that we’re being watched. Be on your guard.”

The others nodded. Ming maneuvered the orb of light so that it was closer to them and they set back off into the foggy forest, trudging up the mountain step by weary step.

They traveled for several hours before Arek’s back started to tingle. The orc looked over his shoulder and found nothing but fog, which shouldn’t have surprised him. He grimaced and turned back.

The feeling came and went as they continued onwards. Whenever Arek thought he might be imagining it, the feeling returned once again. He was used to being the hunter, not the prey, and Arek didn’t like this new change of roles.

Several times, the fog seemed to shift at the edges of his vision. However, by the time he turned to look at it, there was nothing. There was no point telling the others, of course. Arek could tell that they saw the same movements he did. The question wasn’t if they were being stalked – it was when they were going to be attacked.

“Is there a way you could get rid of this fog?” Arek whispered to Ming.

“It would be best if I avoided it,” Ming replied. “As I use more pure magic, I can feel my mastery over the other basic magic I knew fading. It would take a lot of power to use enough wind magic to push the fog away.”

“And you can’t do anything with pure magic?” Malissa asked.

“Not yet,” Ming grumbled. “I’ve only learned two spells. I’m working on the third, which might be a bit more useful for situations like this, but I don’t have anywhere near enough understanding to cast it.”

They all looked at Belmont, who pressed his lips thin and shook his head.

“Nothing new here. Not yet,” Belmont sighed, slowly moving his head back and forth to watch for anything in the fog. “I’m getting close, but it’s not there. And it’s a healing spell, so it wouldn’t be of any help here.”

“I have something that might help, but it’s a last resort,” Arek said. “It would involve me using a lot more magic than I’ve channeled recently, and I’m not a fan of trying new things in the field.”

“It would be best to avoid that,” Belmont agreed quietly.

As the group ascended the sloping mountain, the fog started to let up a little. It was still dense and dark, but Ming’s light started to illuminate more and more of their surroundings. Whatever was following them seemed to realize it at about the same time the party did.

The leaves to their left rustled. Arek extended his arm, green light flowing out of his runes and forming into the guandao and partial armor over his arm. Malissa’s daggers appeared in her hands and Belmont tightened his grip on the pink staff.

“On the off chance you’re an intelligent creature, this is when you leave,” Arek called out. “We’re only traveling through, and we want no trouble. However, if you insist on fighting, you’ll not find us an easy snack.”

The response was a low, clicking growl that echoed through the woods around them. Arek shifted his stance, transferring the guandao to his armored hand and raising the other one before him.

“I don’t think it’s friendly,” Ming said.

“Really? What gave that away?” Belmont asked, his eyes now focused on the party rather than their surroundings. He put his back against a tree.

A flicker of gray appeared at the edge of the fog. Arek bounded forward and swung the guandao horizontally. The weapon flared with green light, carving clean through a tree. The weapon slammed into something dense with a resounding clang.

The fog vanished as a loud roar and a blast of wind erupted from whatever Arek had struck. For the first time, the Happy Sunflowers laid eyes on the creature that had been following them all day.

It reptilian and about the size of a large horse, with pale gray scales and large, curled horns. The creature’s tongue flicked out of its mouth and it hissed, bearing rows of jagged fangs.

“Wyrm,” Arek called out, hopping back as the wyrm’s barbed tail pierced the air, narrowly missing his head. He adjusted his grip on the guandao and gave the creature a savage grin as battle rage started to thrum in his ears and eyes. “I’ve always wondered what one of you would taste like.”