[Dungeons] and danger are two words that go hand in hand. Much like [Dungeons] and treasure. And [Dungeons] and glory. Also [Dungeons] and death. Testing oneself against these System-recognized hazards is often rewarded with incredible growth. The trick is surviving a [Dungeon] is easy. Don't go anywhere near them. But, of course, no one ever listens to me. They've come to educate themselves on what a [Dungeon] is and how to go about conquering one. I can say this, however, it will not be easy.

- Delving into [Dungeons], Coby Tuuli

Personal Quest: [Mysterious Arrival] (Epic)

Keylos, God of Lost Travelers, beckons those who hail from other worlds, realities, or planes. He is the patron deity of all lost travelers, acting as both guide and protector for those not knowing their way, or unfamiliar with their reality. As one who comes from Earth, seeking him out may answer questions, even those unasked. Follow the traveler's waystones and discover an enduring place of worship devoted to the God of Lost Travelers.

Reward: Unknown

Jayke sat against the bones of an ancient skeleton. The curling ribs were awash in the firelight. They reached up like flames to the night sky, licking at the stars above. An ancient carcass of some age-old behemoth that became part of the landscape. They were camped by the shores of a small lake that the proctors informed them once engulfed the entire forest. He'd spent an inordinate amount of time marveling at the bones which were large enough to encompass their entire crowd.

He gently traced the wordings in the book on his lap. The Origins of Quests and Feats. Another book from The Untethered Tomes. It was part of a handful he'd bartered for from Chee before he left the Marketplace Between.

The book was written in Common and was completely readable, he'd thought nothing of it before. He'd initially thought it was interchangeable with English but seeing actual written English on the stone tablet had changed his mind. Somehow, he was reading a previously unknown language. He'd been whispering to himself all day once he came upon the realization. Even his words weren't in English, they were in Common.

He read over a small section of the book for the tenth time in as many days.

Quests are known to take many forms, in that there are a plethora of attachable prefixes that alter the way one approaches their completion. The specificity of each of these means that it is not surprising for one to not recognize each and every one. Too, there may yet be hundreds of undocumented cases.

For some individuals, some personal complications and struggles are recognized as great undertakings, pursuits, or endeavors. The System accepts these and presents those known as Personal Quests.

A Personal Quest orbits close to one's being, often near life-changing circumstances or events. By its very nature, it cannot be easily documented.

He hummed quietly in thought.

It had been a little more than a week since he had gotten that Personal Quest. It seemed a fitting one, considering his predicament. Life-changing indeed. He wouldn't argue that. More curiously, however, was that the System had recognized him as someone from Earth. That little detail made him realize the true scope of this force of nature - this System. It was implied he was from another world, reality, or plane. He had already guessed that part, but it made him wonder at the reach of such a thing. The wording of the entire Quest only piled on the questions in his mind leaving him no real choice. He had no better leads.

He'd done some asking. Unfortunately, no one knew what the traveler's waystones were.

He had been sitting with his reading material in his lap cross-legged but he sighed, put his book away, and rested his arms on his knees. The wide rib bone conformed to his back nearly perfectly. It worried away at some of his building stress and questions.

"Never forget to enjoy the moment." He said quietly to himself, then coughed when he remembered Sterext was on watch not a few meters from him. The bowman, Yurn, perched farther from the bones of their shelter, staring into the night.

The older man chuckled. With his longer form, the motion was only more exaggerated. The small curl on his lips was a rare sight. "Wise words, Mr. Cipher." He said across the sleeping forms.

Jayke turned his gaze to the lapping of the waves on the lake's shore. The other set of ribs protruded from the middle of the lake like rising teeth, reminding him just how large the creature in which they rested truly was. He wondered if fish mimicked their sheltering on the other side, darting between bones caked in barnacle and life.

Sterext exhaled. "We approach further and further from the lands the Coterie is familiar with. Onward lies only mystery. Our voyage has taken an unprecedented amount of time."

"Is The Floating City of Nubilum known to move this far?"

"The Mountains Of Rune go where they please," Sterext replied. "They are not the problem. It's simply a matter of the Uncharted. It is too vast, veiled, and monotonous to mount any cartographic missions. That is to say nothing of their danger."

"Danger? We've been walking along just fine these past few weeks."

Sterext looked at him in surprise. "Why do you think that is?" He leaned back. "Among the proctors are many a talented mage. Chiefmost amongst them are those capable of preventive magics. Divinings and wardings. A necessity for a voyage such as this."

Jayke became interested. "I haven't heard of those."

"The masses often forget there is more to magic than the elements." He said knowingly. "Divination, the practice of truth. To uncover secrets forgotten, interpret the meaningless, the sensing of the future. Powerful magic that seeks the truth of the user just as he seeks the truth of the world." Sterext said with some passion.

He looked at Jayke and caught himself. "Warding is a field of magic I think very close to your own. You may find some success with it. It is the subtle power to turn away things, shield against influences or nuisances, repel spells, or protect things against harm. In sheer scope, it is one of the leading magics. One of the most complicated and meticulous as well."

"Are one of those your specialty?" Jayke asked clued in. He hadn't had the chance to question the older [Mage] yet.

"Both." He responded.

Jayke looked at him. "How does it work?"

The benefit of Sterext's larger-than-normal features meant Jayke could see a small amount of surprise flash across his otherwise immovable expression.

He plucked a small stone from the ground. "Divining is beyond you but perhaps you may grasp warding. You can learn how everyone learns." He tossed the stone towards Jayke. "With a rock that doesn't want you to look at it."

Somehow Jayke managed to catch the thing. He'd randomly turned his head to stare at the fire. He looked at the rock in his hand, but then found the lake more interesting. He squinted at the rock. "What the heck?"

Sterext didn't bother to continue the conversation. He and Jayke were often night owls together, along with the bowman escort Yurn. As far as Jayke knew, the proctor was in the same boat as him. He couldn't sleep. As for the escort assigned to their group, well that was just his job.

Sheltering under the large bones of a creature too massive to truly comprehend in life, there was some irony in the fact that Jayke was so focused on a small little stone. In the dim firelight, the battle between his eyes and the unimpressed surface of the stone raged. The final blow was a flicker of firelight that drew his gaze away - or perhaps the stone pushed it there - and he was caught by the sandman.

In the morning, as was often the case, the proctors convened. Bright and early before anyone could rise before them.

Jayke stretched on the sand, enjoying the feeling of his blood flowing. He'd been doing his daily stretches whenever he could. It was just a small habit from solitude that kept him limber. He'd found a lieu of health benefits that followed him because of it.

He was attracting no more stares than any of the other strange characters that made up their crowd. Besides, most were focused on the proctors waiting for their announcement. They usually let everyone know what the day entailed.

As was their wont, they called for movement. In minutes, everyone started walking and adopting the formation they'd been accustomed to the entire journey. They moved away from the bones of the ancient creature and made their way into the woods. More than a handful peered up at the bones of the creature as they moved away.

For the past week, he'd been practicing both of his magics.

He'd kept a habit of maintaining and manipulating at least one shield sphere at all times. Even now, one twirled around him, invisible to anyone looking with plain eyes. The manipulation of those orbs became easier for him. Two at once was currently beyond him, but neither did it look impossible.

He had been coding too, developing his visual recognition magic into something that might be useful, though it looked like it might be a dead end. Anything too complex he'd have to create from scratch whenever the magic ran out. It was easy to reproduce that initial program that recognized the Healer's Stalk and Greenleaf, but anything more and he had a tough time of it. That wasn't to mention the increase in mana required to run the magical programs that identified more than a handful of things.

Fiddling with his magic gave him a greater understanding of [Lesser Data Sense]. More or less, he understood what was beyond the limits of his perception and what was within it. Adapting that sense and implementing it into a working piece of magic, well that was something he'd only master with time and practice.

It was that [Lesser Data Sense] he'd begun to apply to the small stone in his hand. Neither Oz nor Ercur even glanced at the object of his intense focus. The magic enveloping the small mundane stone was anything but. If he focused his perception, strained his mind, he found he could extract copious amounts of data from a target object. Of course, most of that wasn't useful or comprehensible and so he observed the stone with only a soft focus.

The magic that wrapped it was evasive in and of itself. It gently slid away from his focus, no matter how many times Jayke recentered his attention. It was always subtly waiting to slip away. The moment Jayke narrowed in on his sense of the magic, he held it up in clarity.

It was an aura of complex magic as alien to him as his first time learning a coding language except magnified a thousand times. It was stiflingly intricate in a way that was completely antithesis to the cool magic of protection and the certain logic of code. A magic of precise feeling, emotion, and sentiment. No, he was wrong. There was more... or was there less?

He shook his head and pocketed the rock. A problem for later, Ercur had nudged him. By the time Jayke reoriented himself there were some warnings up ahead about treacherous terrain.

"Slipwater holes!" Someone warned. "Watch your step!"

He watched his step. Picking his footholds as those in front of him did. On either side of him, puddles of clear water. He peered down one and saw it reached deep down into the ground.

Someone grabbed his shoulder and pulled him away. "It's slipwater. You'll fall right through." Ercur warned him.

Oz was waiting while the people ahead spread out among the many puddles. Too close together and there was a risk someone would fall in. "Slipwater?" The man's eyes were both curious and wary. He glanced carefully at the puddles.

"A thin liquid. Nowhere near dense enough for anyone to swim in." She explained. "Falling into one of those puddles is no different from falling off a cliff of the same height. Only you'd be drowning the whole way down." She shivered, then fixed the green hair that came down as a result.

Jayke whistled, looking up ahead. "This entire place is littered with them."

People walked cautiously between the small strips of land between each hole. The puddles were as large in diameter as Jayke was tall, and varied from that size down. He reached between the blooming plants beside the puddle, picked up a rock and threw it in.

It slipped right through the surface with barely a splash. Then Jayke saw it racing down as if there was nothing but a sheen of water between him and it. It was if the other side was simply air. It bounced off somewhere below and he lost sight of it.

Sterext was nearby, looking around with a steady eye. "There is no other path forward less we detour by days." He explained. "Watch your step. " Unlike them, he walked easily between the puddles, neither fear nor misstep hindered him. "The mountains will not wait for us."

Just then something jumped from the water. A flicker in the air. Then it slipped into the puddle opposite. Jayke had barely seen it. "Did you guys see-"

"Ow, what the hell?" Someone yelled.

"Hey!" Another responded. "Watch where you're shoving!"

Someone screamed and everyone stared as a person slipped through a puddle off balance. Hands reached for him but they were too late, the last second of his scream turned into a gurgle. Jayke saw someone get hit in the head, whipping around. People were yelling and grunting, some brought down to their knees as they were bombarded with something unseen. Everyone else was looking around confused until it hit them, both literally and metaphorically.

Jayke handled the latter. "Something invisible from the puddles!"

"Attack! We're under attack!" Someone screamed. He cast something and ducked down, looking surer in his step. Those around him did the same, whacking at things in the air. A number of people stumbled until they started bracing themselves, and lowering their center mass.

"Away from the puddles!" Another person yelled, stumbling. Someone caught him.

His companion looked around wildly and warned. "They're shooting right out of the puddles. Careful!" The man blasted the nearest puddle with ice, freezing the surface, only for the sheet of ice to fall through the slipwater leaving the puddle open again. Something hit him in the face.

Jayke formed a shield against the nearest puddle, covering its entirety. Small impacts bounced off the underside. He saw someone get hit by something and fall backward. A stone pillar shot up from the ground and caught her.

Ercur had drawn her daggers and Oz crouched nearby.

Something hit Jayke in the shoulder. Any more force and it would've been a bruise. The opposite puddle was rippling as if something disturbed its surface. Jayke threw another shield over it. But that was his limit. The small impacts against it drained him.

Ercur was squinting past her green hair. "[Lucky Guess]! There!" Then her dagger curved behind her and impaled something wriggling. Clear liquid ran down her hand.

Sterext was looking peeved nearby glancing everywhere at once. "Invisifish." He frowned. "[Greater Sight]." Then his eyes glowed and he took in the scene.

Jayke cut off his shields, leaving them as charged barriers. He drew his staff and looked around. The puddles nearby were covered by his shields and left only the one that Sterext was handling. A bright ball of tangly energy formed in Sterext's hand and shot into the slipwater. Jayke was just at the angle to see the ball break into many unerring blasts of energy. They each impacted something.

Ercur wiped liquid on her leg and stared at the dead thing impaled on her weapon. Even while still, the only things visible were the flash of its eyes and very faint orangey vein system. Other than that, the thing was the size of a one-liter bottle.

New Event Quest: [Invisible Enemies] (Uncommon)

Within some of the most inhospitable environments to the mundane, the magical find great success. Invisible enemies, attracted by the budding magical energies of a plethora of [Mages] have come to feast! Beware the slipwater for any poor soul who falls through is nothing more than food.

Repel the aggressors and reduce further casualties.

Reward: Based on Contribution

Jayke ducked as something hit him in the shoulder again. Flailing things that were jumping between the deep puddles of slipwater. Had Sterext said they were fish? How were they packing such a punch but able to swim freely through the thin water?

He spotted people running towards a wider stretch of land.

Sterext yelled at them in warning. Then there was a spray of blood, the sound of a heavy body, and the [Mages] were gone. Jayke blinked, the red mist only appeared for a moment. That was the only indication of their deaths. Something big had just taken them out or rather had taken a bite out of them. Jayke had seen it all before.

"Give me that." He told Ercur.

The woman snapped out of her stare and handed Jayke the fish. "What? What are you doing with it?"

"Leave him, Ercur." Oz said quickly. He was conjuring slimes, sending them out between the puddles to act as nothing if not bait.

Then Jayke was using his [Lesser Data Sense] focusing on what made the creature invisible. Visual cues went out the window, he was locking onto the essence of the thing. The reason that, even now, Jayke could barely make out its flesh, much less that stab wound right in the middle of it.

He didn't stare at the data too hard. He felt it. Sensed it. He'd found that was the best approach. Analysis of the method came after the result. It was a type of passive magic inherent in the thing's very scales. He frowned as he focused on it, barely within his grasp. It dodged the physical senses and was too transparent even in the magical spectrum. How long did he stare at it? How long was he-

He locked onto it.

Jayke's program would be able to find it, so long as the things were in range. To locate magic, one needed to sense the magic. He'd practiced enough to output indicators to the magical senses even though his own range was abysmal. It was hit or miss with that, however, he hoped it worked. Two weeks practicing had paid off. The program was done. It knew what it was looking for. It just had no way to look for it.

The magical program swirled at the tip of his staff.

"Oz, you have [Manasight] right?" The blue man turned to him confused.

"Yes, why?" He looked to Jayke's staff. "What is-"

"Hope this works." He tapped Oz's chest with the magic. "Let it grab you, feed it your mana."

He looked at him uncertainly then Oz jerked and his eyes widened. He looked around. "What-" He seemed to focus for a quick moment. "It's... stable." He said slowly.

"Can you see them?"

"Y-yes. Yes, I can." Oz adjusted immediately. In the distance, his slimes started stabbing at things unerringly. Spike slimes.

"How is he seeing them? What?" Ercur yelled. She was slashing at the air. Every now and then something would hit the floor. "I thought I was being escorted! Why do I have to deal with this?" She said loudly frustrated.

"[Quadshot]." Somone spoke calmly. Just then four arrows planted themselves into the spaces around Ercur. The bowman appeared beside Jayke just as four somethings fell to the floor. "They're not much threat to us here. Not unless that comes any nearer." The bowman, Yurn, nodded off to the side.

Oz had been staring at that empty space along the puddle fields too. "It's huge." He said, keeping an eye on whatever it was and his slimes. That place was where those people died instantly.

Jayke's barriers dissipated and he worked on getting them back onto the puddles nearby.

Sterext yelled at him. "Leave those. I've warded them. Focus on evacuating anyone you can!"

He was chanting magic and throwing homing bolts of energy that seemed to collide with fish on collision courses to nearby testers. A group of people managed to escape to wider ground away from the puddles, conjuring walls of fire in their wake. Another group was closing off the puddles with solid earth.

Jayke focused on conjuring barriers between puddles whenever they were in the path of people picking their way to safety. Some had hesitated at the sight of them but at Jayke's call, they started moving. Yurn was loosing arrows as cover fire while Ercur occasionally stabbed at something nearby.

Oz's slimes were met with more hesitance than Jayke's barrier. But their unerring accuracy and ability to impale whatever invisible assaulters came from the puddles encouraged people to start moving. A number of people had become stuck between thin walkways and large puddles. Oz had sent his slimes towards those stragglers.

Jayke eyed more people far up ahead.

They were darting between the puddles like dancers, unafraid. Whirling through the air and slicing at invisible enemies that it almost looked like shadow-boxing or some bladed version of it. One of them was knocked high up into the air by something, but then he must've used a Skill because he landed with impeccable grace. A man with a sword escorted people past the puddles. His slashes were precise and clean, his sword didn't stop moving. A woman wildly charged forth, fists swinging about like lightning pulverizing whatever invisible enemies she struck to vaporized mist.

Jayke realized these were some of the people hired to protect them.

He glanced at Yurn who was tracing his shots with his eyes. "Sterext! We're going. Now!" He called. "Lead them!"

Sterext grunted but began walking forward. Wordlessly, Jayke formed a shield in front of him. His staff gave him enough control that he was able to keep another shield against whatever puddle they neared. Oz had placed spike slimes on both Ercur and Jayke's shoulders. He tried not to think about the recoil coming from his back.

He glanced into the slipwater. The drop was just as treacherous as the first time he saw it. The puddle rippled but nothing impacted his shield. Something else had moved. Jayke looked up. Vibrations.

"Sterext! Move it!" Yurn yelled at him. "We're dead either way if you drag your feet!"

"They'll lose their footing!" He called back.

"I don't fucking care!" Yurn bellowed. Sterext's long gait began to eat up distance.

"Gods above, it's coming right for us," Oz whispered.

Jayke had to ask. "What is it? It killed those people instantly."

Oz realized they couldn't see it. "I don't know. It's big though. A huge mouth and a whirlwind of teeth." He started moving. "I've never seen the likes of it."

Yurn jumped over a puddle, ducking and shooting at something Jayke still couldn't perceive. "You wouldn't have. That's a fucking reaver. We're not cut out to fight an invisible one. Not even with all the [Mages] here."

"A reaver?" Sterext shuddered, half-turning in his step yet not missing a single one. "You're certain?"

"My eyes do not deceive me as your magic does [Mage]." Yurn squinted. "I know a monster when I see a monster."

There was another handful running alongside them. Testers directly parallel to them, rushing through the blooming plants littering the side of every puddle. Jayke saw them first. "Oz! Yurn!" He pointed

They turned and saw them too.

"They're too close!" Oz hesitated. He called out. "Watch out!"

"Oh no." Ercur gasped. "That's where-"

"Blast it all." Yurn cursed. "[Cover Fire]! Get your asses moving!" He bellowed at the runners. A blur of arrows blanketed the area behind them. Arrows in such a spread Jayke was certain he'd turn around and find a handful of archers. There weren't any to be found.

The runners blinked at Yurn but saw his arrows paint a picture behind them. Thudding powerfully into something very large. Their eyes widened and they began sprinting, favoring their lives over a small chance of slipping.

"Stop staring and start moving!" Yurn roared at the three.

Sterext stepped aside. "Go now! To the trees! Follow the other proctors!" Then he turned and began to cast magic. "[Shield Ward]!"

Jayke, Oz, and Ercur ran. And then they kept running. Minutes that felt like hours.

When they finally broke into the forest beyond the slipwater puddles everyone was breathless. Winded. Jayke hunched over, heaving. His heart raced with exertion and pressure. He found some budding bruises along his sides.

Wherever they had been, they'd attracted the least of the dangers. The fish that hit them didn't have teeth. Others weren't so lucky. People were missing small bits of flesh. Blood ran freely from too many people. He saw someone with a broken arm. There hadn't just been those liter-sized fish, there had been bigger ones.

Too many people were lost.

They rounded a tree and found other testers. Just as exhausted. Some were restless. Others were motionless. All of them flinched when Oz, Ercur and Jayke rounded the corner. Jayke found the people who had seen death in an instant. He identified the people who had never witnessed anything like it. He saw those trying to be strong, and those who were weak.

At that moment, Jayke realized how young everyone really was. Then he registered he was technically just as young if not younger. Of course, this world was harsher than his, right from the start. But people needed to experience it first. The natives weren't born hardier or stronger mentally. The world forged them into that.

Here, Jayke might have witnessed the smith's first strike of his hammer against many here.

Event Quest Failed: [Invisible Enemies] (Uncommon)

Within some of the most inhospitable environments to the mundane, the magical find great success. Invisible enemies, attracted by the budding magical energies of a plethora of [Mages] have come to feast! Beware the slipwater for any poor soul who falls through is nothing more than food.

Repel the aggressors and reduce further casualties.

Reward: Based on Contribution

It was like a final punch to the gut than the rewarding screen he was used to. They'd let too many die, and that by its own dampened the mood. They failed the Quest. Too many casualties. And they hadn't repelled them really. It was more like they were covering their asses.

It was still day, but looking at the cautious crowd, one would be pressed into thinking something was truly out there. Jayke frowned, he'd seen a handful of people slip into those puddles. Certain death, they had been saying. Not to mention that group that was obliterated into a fine red mist. A reaver. Jayke felt it might've matched something from back home. He shivered at the thought, that here something might exceed the horrors of his past.

"How many do you think?" Oz said softly.

"Ten to twenty dead." Jayke had already done a headcount. Of their original hundred or so, he counted that many less.

"I saw some proctors and escorts circle back. Six or so." Ercur tallied. "Not everyone is here yet." She said quietly.

"Fifteen give or take. In minutes." Oz shook his head. "Dead just like that."

They lapsed into silence and then someone spoke up with a shake in her voice. "W-what the hell?" Her voice broke with painful grief and fear. "What the hell was that!?" She breathed hard.

Her question hung in the air.

If the acoustics had been right, Jayke imagined the words would have echoed endlessly until someone answered them. They'd echo back and forth, demanding an answer when nothing would ever suffice. How could you explain the unflappable countenance of the reaper? What did you say to someone so obviously in denial of their trauma? Comfort them with happy lies? Give them time to grieve, to come to their own peace?

Jayke's mouth moved before he even knew it was.

"That was a fact of life. A cold truth as certain as anything as good in life." He said unable to stop some amount of emotion from crawling into his words. "Whether you cry, curse, or shrug, people die. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop it." He caught himself finally, lowering his volume and easing the sting of his words. "Not you. Not me."

He felt Oz and Ercur's gaze. Along with the eyes of everyone nearby. He didn't even flinch at any of them. He'd spent what felt like years being observed by worse. He'd observed countless deaths, this was no different. But it always stung, stung too deep for him to ever ignore.

Jayke watched as the woman who had asked slumped. Something had dimmed in her eyes, but the flame hadn't gone out. He'd seen the same look in the mirror.

Jayke couldn't help but feel empty just then. A feeling that was at times as assuring as it was dreadful. Perhaps that's why Jayke said what he said, so someone might prove him wrong. His words were nothing more than a dare made towards anyone with the proof to prove him wrong. That these meaningless deaths were anything but.

There was something terribly freeing once you came to that truth. One that Jayke had reached a long time ago. It was the notion that in the face of certain death, one could truly live. What inhibitions were left when the end was always the same? In knowing with certainty that his death was an absolute fact, inescapable, gone was the need to fear it. He could live to the fullest.

That didn't mean Jayke liked to see people die though.

A handful of proctors and escorts walked into the crowd. Their arrival silenced everyone, many flinched. To their credit, no one shouted or directed the anger towards the proctors. People were expected to take care of themselves in the Uncharted, the wilderness was unforgiving to anyone who couldn't. Everyone had made it to the Marketplace Between through methods of their own after all. Unlike Jayke, most here had known death was sometimes the price.

And it wasn't as if anyone had really lost friends. They'd all been competition. These were people who hadn't known each other for three weeks.

Hucobb began uninhibited by the somber mood. "We're truly in the Uncharted now. Whatever lies ahead from this point on is a new frontier for the Practitioner's Coterie. None of us expected the Mountains of Rune to drift so far."

He noticed the dead looks in people's eyes.

A scarred and tattooed proctor. Morn, Jayke recalled, spoke. "The world is worse than this. Pack up, we're moving. Our wards have failed once and that might mean twice. Keep your eyes peeled, our days of peaceful walk has come to an end."

The proctors spoke for a while. The gist was easy enough to understand. Safety was never guaranteed. Even more so now. The Uncharted was uncharted, after all, and that meant danger could be lurking around every corner. If the wards had failed to repel it, that meant the threats were all the more powerful.

Hucobb and Morn blazed the trail. Slowly, some normalcy bled into their walk. Tension in the air held everyone alert. The slipwater puddles had seemed no different from any other sight they had passed. Yet, it was the one to draw blood. It threw everyone's perspective of their surroundings into distrust.

Eventually, the forest cleared. They were at the peak of a large hill, a steep incline with more trees marked the path down. But, for a moment, the sky was clear of branch and leaf.

The Mountains of Rune were beheld in all their glory.

"Fortune favors us." Ercur grinned. "It's finally moving our way."