“You found something?” I stared down at my travel companion, unsure what to make at her declaration. “Something that can’t wait until morning?”

At the question, a rare hint of abashment crossed Cal’s face, but just as fast as it had appeared, it was gone. “I mean, yeah I guess it could have. But hey! You’re awake now, so… Let’s get to it, yeah?”

I groaned. She was, however, correct. I was awake now, and though I wished she would have waited till morning, I had to admit I was pretty curious to see what could have worked her up into such a state.

“Fine,” I mumbled. “But do we at least have time for you to take a shower or something? How long have you been gone, anyway?” On closer inspection, I realized she was much grungier than I’d first noticed, and I was truthfully surprised my Perception-enhanced nose hadn’t caught wind of her. I idly wondered if her lack of odor was due to some stealth skill she had, or if perhaps it was a side effect of having such a high Charisma. Probably not polite to ask.

She shrugged, and before I could stop her, she got up and tapped on one of the tent’s shower gems. Instantly, a spray of water fell from the top of the tent, drenching the two of us.

“Cal!” Disbelief was written plain across my face as I watched the rogue scrub at some of the deeper stains in her clothing. How was it possible that a full-on princess could show this little etiquette?

“What?” She fixed me with a look as if to say that I was the one acting unreasonably. “You wanted me to take a shower, right?” She gave a quick tap to the off gem, followed by one to the drying gem, and the water ceased before all the moisture was sucked from the air. “Shower: Taken. Now come on, let’s wake Hartha up so we can get going.”

Her words caught me off guard, the scolding I’d been preparing dying on my tongue. “You’re waking Hartha up too? Why? Actually, backtrack: What did you find?”

Letting loose an exasperated sigh, she made her way to the tent flap, beckoning me. “Do you want to sit here talking about it, or do you just want me to show you?”

Well, that was an easy choice. “Definitely sit here talking abou-”

“Boooo, wrong answer! Now come on!” Indifferent to my takes on the matter, Cal ducked out of the tent, leaving me no choice but to follow.

Actually, that wasn’t quite true. I was of half a mind to sit tight just to spite the little fucker. With a sigh of my own, however, I buried the urge and followed after her. After all, I was curious, even if she could be a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes.

On leaving the tent, I found Cal waiting for me, surprising me by not having run ahead. Her actions made more sense a moment later, however, as she cocked her head to the side.

“So, which one’s Hartha’s tent anyway?”

Less than ten minutes later, the three of us were bounding through the forest, Cal brimming with energy, Hartha still half asleep, and me a touch indignant.

“Why does Hartha get to be woken up with a gentle pat on the shoulder, while I wake up with my heart racing from a battle notification?” I mean sheesh. I wasn’t trying to be some fancy lord or anything, but weren’t people supposed to respect the Protagonist just a little bit?

“Because Hartha doesn’t sleep like a log. Anyway, cheer up! Nothing like a little fear of death to wake you up in the morning!” Cal beamed back at me, and I turned to Hartha in search of support.

Instead, she nodded. “It’s true. You do sleep like a log.”

I gaped at her, aghast at the betrayal. Alas! What had I done to deserve such heartless friends?

Hartha chuckled at my expression before letting out a long yawn. “In any case, don’t get me wrong. Love to be invited. Tess — Always a blast. Cal — Great to get to know you better. Real dream team we got going on here. But does someone want to finally explain why I’m walking through the forest in the middle of the night? Not to be a downer, but keeping hundreds of people fed kinda takes its toll on a person.”

Oof. I’d forgotten how much harder the shadows’ jobs had gotten now that the fighters had arrived. I figured perhaps this would guilt Cal into at last letting us know what we were here for, but she was unrelenting.

“Really am sorry to pull you from your sleep, but it’ll be worth it; I promise! We’re not that far!”

Hartha and I locked eyes and shared a sleepy frown, both too tired to push the matter any farther. The group fell silent, and on we walked

Thirty minutes later, we came to a stop. In front of us lay a nondescript patch of forest, slightly clearer than the rest, where only weeds and small plants poked out through the earth. Cal splayed her arms to the side, presenting the area to us with pride.

I figured with her greater knowledge of the forest, Hartha might have a better clue of why Cal had led us here, but a quick glance confirmed she was just as lost as I was.

“Uh. Some really cool dirt we got going on here. Now that we’re here though, mind telling us what the big deal is?”

Cal did her best to drape an arm about each of our shoulders despite the height difference, pulling us in conspiratorially before letting loose the big reveal. At last, she spoke.

“I don’t know.”

Hartha and I stared at her for a long second, each of us watching as a small part of the other one’s soul wilted and died.

“You… don’t know? What do you mean ‘you don’t know’? Why did we get dragged out of bed for ‘you don’t know’?”

Sensing the edge to my voice, she held her hands up in a gesture of placation. “I don’t know the specifics, but does anything here seem odd to you?”

I wasn’t particularly in the mood to play games, but I scanned the area more closely nonetheless.

The more I looked, though, the more something did feel noticeably off, and the more my annoyance gave way to interest.

The clearing itself was perhaps a tad odd in its shape — while not made from perfectly straight lines, its perimeter was for the most part a clean rectangle — but that wasn’t fully it. Something was different about what I was seeing; I just couldn’t tell what.

Then, all at once, it hit me: “The plants. They’re normal.”

I watched as realization dawned on Hartha’s face, and she spun about, verifying the claim. It was a gradual change, hard to notice at first, but the closer a plant was to the center of the clearing, the less dark mana it had seeped up. The trees spanning the clearing’s perimeter still had inky veins running through them, but the dark sections were considerably lighter than on the other trees, and the weeds at the clearing’s center were entirely dark free.

“Aaaand, we have a winner! And do you know what that means?” Cal flashed me a self-satisfied smile, well aware that I was hooked now.

“What?” I replied.

“I also don’t know!”

At her words, I gained the strong desire to trap the little shit in a headlock and give her a royal nuggie, but before I could act on the urge, she held a finger up.

“But I know it’s something good. My Infiltrator class is all about uncovering secrets, which is mostly why I’ve been going off on my own so much lately. You figure a lot’s bound to be buried in a magically-grown forest covering the ruins of an ancient city, yeah? Anyway, as soon as I found this place, everything was screaming out at me that there had to be something here. And I think Hartha can help with that.”

The forest shadow nodded in agreement. Seeing my look of confusion, she clarified.

“Eyes of the Forest.” She pushed me the skill description a moment later.

Eyes of the Forest

A specialized marriage of Earth Sight and Wood Eyes, Eyes of the Forest allows the caster to get a vague sense of what lies in the earth beneath them, with more refined vision being offered for the earth surrounding any roots.

This skill is a Perception-based class skill. The radius and clarity of the skill are affected both by the class skill rank and the caster’s Perception stat.

“I guess it’s good for me that I spent all that time blabbing to you about my class skills when we met, huh. Or actually, I take that back. If I hadn’t, I’d still be in bed, wouldn’t I?” Hartha grinned teasingly at Cal before focusing and activating her skill. She bowed her head and closed her eyes for a matter of seconds, and then, with a start, she was done.

“She’s right. And I think I see a door. There,” she pointed. “Buried under a few inches of dirt.”

A door? Did that mean we’d found some kind of basement? What could it be housing that would affect the plants in such a manner?

“Great! So… You wouldn’t happen to have a ‘move earth’ spell too, would you?” As Hartha shook her head, Cal frowned and addressed the two of us. “Well damn. You know, one of you really should have thought to bring a shovel.”

Of the three of us, it turned out that I was unfortunately the best equipped for digging. While I doubt it had been created with such a purpose in mind, my Arcane Armament skill came in handy here, a summoned water spear turning out to be just barely passably suited for the job. It wasn’t the perfect shape, but in addition to cutting into the earth with ease, it moistened it as well, making it much easier to remove.

Much cursing later, it was done. I struck my spear into the ground, only for it to rebound off of something solid, and after clearing the last layer of dirt, a small stone trapdoor came into view.

“I’ll open it.” Cal eyed the door hungrily, whether due to her nature or her Infiltrator class, I couldn’t tell. “If it’s trapped, I’ll be able to handle it and disarm them the best.”

Not waiting for agreement, she hopped into the shallow hole I’d dug and slowly pulled the door open, a musty smell wafting up from the opening.

Coming as a surprise to all three of us, instead of the total darkness we’d expected, a weak light shone up through the open door.

What sort of light could be on after all this time?

Wordlessly, the three of us looked to one another with a nod.

None of us were sure, but we were certainly about to find out.