They had no fresh food for breakfast the following morning, though thankfully they could supplement the rations they’d brought with some dried goods from Gwen’s cellar. A section of the glade cultivated fruit and vegetables, but they’d had no chance to harvest anything the day before, leaving it as something to look forward to when they returned.

They were all refreshed after a surprisingly good nights sleep, and in surprisingly short order, they were armed and ready for a day of hunting and exploration. Gwen was staying behind at the cottage, she intended to find as many of her grandmother’s writings as possible and start working through them, so it would just be the four of them heading back out.

‘Ready?’ Verdan asked, a little regretful that he wasn’t able to stay behind for a good day of studying himself.

‘Ready,’ Kai said with a nod, Tim and Tom chiming in a second later.

‘Then let’s go. Kai, then Tom, me and Tim at the back, happy with that?’ Verdan pointed to each of them as he called out the marching order, everyone nodding that they were happy with that arrangement.

‘Where are we going first?’ Kai asked as he grabbed his spear from where it was leant against the cottage.

‘The logging camp first, I want to see what we find and then search that area. Those spiders give us a good idea of what sort of creature is being pushed into this area, but we have no idea what’s causing that yet.’

‘Okay, let’s go then,’ Kai shouldered his weapon and led the way out of the glade, the rest of them following behind as they left the safety of the wards.

The woods were a completely different experience in daylight. Threatening shadows and ominous pools of darkness were replaced by pleasant greenery and gentle birdsong. Verdan might even have thought that they were in a completely different place if it weren’t for the damaged spiderweb they came across as they retraced their steps. There was no sign of the spider corpses. The local scavengers had been quick to take advantage of the free meal that had been left for them.

The spiderweb was a good reminder though, no matter how nice these woods looked right now, they were here because of how dangerous they’d become. The birdsong was a good sign, but they hadn’t seen any other wildlife as of yet, which might be happenstance, or it might be a symptom of the larger issue in the area.

-**-

They reached the turn off for the logging camp around mid-morning. They’d made good time so far, having not encountered anything dangerous on the way, but Verdan could feel a certain tension in the air now. He wasn’t sure what it was or what was causing it, but it felt like the calm before the storm. It could be something he was picking up on from the Aether subconsciously. It could also be an expression of how unsettled he'd felt since he'd woken up in this new world.

Glancing at the others, Verdan saw no sign of the same tension on their faces. Perhaps it was just in his mind after all. Still, just to be safe, he partitioned a section of his focus and formed a concept for a protective shield, something fast and easy to create. If danger did strike, Verdan wanted to be ready at a moment's notice.

-**-

The logging camp was a small clearing with a few rudimentary structures for shelter and storage, nothing too expensive to set up or maintain. It was all overgrown and covered in weeds now, the first steps in nature reclaiming the area already well underway.

‘Nothing here I can see,’ Kai said with a frown, looking around the still clearing as he moved further in. A flicker of motion drew their attention, but it was just a flutter of wings as a few birds flew away.

Verdan paused for a moment and reached out with his Aether senses before nodding. He couldn’t sense anything either. ‘Seems clear to me. Let’s look for tracks and see what might be stalking the area.’

Spreading out but staying close enough to watch over each other, they searched through the abandoned camp, finding precious little to help them on their mission. There were claw marks on the walls of the storage building, their size and depth telling him they came from something large with powerful claws.

‘I’ve found some tracks over here,’ Tim called out from the northern side of the camp. Moving closer, Verdan saw that Tim was beside a pile of rubble that might have once been a structure of some sort. The former guard was peering intently down at the ground between the ruins and the woods.

Verdan watched with interest as Kai joined him, and the two conferred for a moment. Verdan had no real skill in tracking, but he found it interesting enough to watch.

‘He’s right, something big came this way, likely looking for food it could scavenge from the camp, should we follow it?’ Kai said, slowly following the first few feet of the tracks back towards the woods.

‘We may as well. We’ve not seen anything else out here so far,’ Verdan said with a shrug. The lack of monsters they’d encountered so far was worrying in itself, for an area that had been abandoned, Verdan had expected there to be far more creatures in the area.

‘Okay, I’ll go first, be careful and stay aware,’ Kai said, keeping low to the ground, but with his spear at the ready, as he followed the tracks into the dense woods.

The tracks led them steadily deeper into the woods, staying on a mostly northern path as they went. The woods were thick and obscuring, with Kai being forced to pause and backtrack a few times to make sure they were still following the tracks.

‘Wait, do you hear that?’ Tim muttered as they clambered across a particularly overgrown area.

‘Yes, what is that?’ Verdan paused and listened more closely, hearing a distant low sound from somewhere up ahead.

‘Rapids,’ Tom said gruffly, pulling himself up and over a large rock to carry on after Kai.

Sharing a look with Tim, Verdan followed suit and carried on along their path. The sounds grew as they came closer, turning into the dull roar of fast-moving water, which soon revealed itself as a long section of rapids that began shortly after a natural ford. Kai and Tom were a short distance ahead and were waiting at the treeline for them to catch up.

‘The tracks head in there,’ Kai pointed across the rapids to a barely visible cave mouth. The cave was set into the side of a large hill and overlooked the rapids. ‘No sign of any movement, could be out, could be asleep.’

‘Are we really going in?’ Tim asked, looking a little worried at the idea of heading into an unknown cave.

‘Yes, but don’t worry, I’ll light the way and be ready with a shield,’ Verdan said, giving Tim’s shoulder a comforting squeeze as he stepped past and led the way across the ford. The water was quick running but fairly shallow and easily traversed, letting them all get across and take up positions to one side of the cave in only a few minutes.

‘Disir.’ Verdan cupped a hand on the top of his staff as he created an orb of bright light and poked it around the corner of the cave. His other hand was up and ready to cast a shielding spell if needed. The light from his staff illuminated a good distance into the cave mouth, showing nothing but a few bones and bare stone. ‘Looks empty enough.’

‘Looks can be deceiving,’ Kai said, his expression grim as he grabbed a smooth rock from the river and threw it into the darkness at the rear of the cave. The stone skipped and skittered out of sight, its movement echoing back out of them as a clatter of noise. A moment of silence passed, then another, with no answering roar of anger or rage coming from inside. Sharing a look with Verdan, Kai started slowly advancing, the wizard trailing along behind, staff high to let the light fill the area.

The cave was maybe fifty-foot deep with a slight curve towards the end, a reasonable size for a den of some form. It was clear that it had been inhabited recently. There were a number of bones scattered around the rear of the cave, some of which looked quite fresh.

‘Nothing, but it was here recently,’ Kai said, poking at a few of the bones as he looked around.

‘Let’s look around the area, see if there are any more tracks,’ Verdan suggested, leading the way back out to where Tom was waiting for them. Glancing around, Verdan saw that Tim had climbed atop the small hill the cave was set into and was surveying the area from the higher ground. Tim spotted they’d emerged and hurried down toward them, skidding down a section of loose ground and almost falling in his haste.

‘There’s something down there in the woods. It almost looks like a campsite of some kind,’ Tim said as soon as he came close enough that he didn’t have to shout, pointing down the hill in the direction the water was flowing. ‘It doesn’t look occupied right now. I couldn’t see anyone moving around anyway.’

‘A camp?’ Verdan echoed with a cock of his head, ‘who would be camping out here?’ The question was only partly rhetorical. After all, he knew the least about the area out of all of them.

‘I need to see the camp,’ Kai said, his expression wooden and tone neutral as he turned to look off in the direction Tim had pointed. ‘We might have found the cause of the disturbance in the area.’

‘What do you mean?’ Verdan asked, but Kai had already set off down the slope towards the trees, either ignoring Verdan or too caught up in his thoughts to hear him. ‘Right. Well, let’s go see then, shall we.’ Verdan followed Kai’s trail down the slope, moving a little quicker than normal to keep up with the sorcerer, who was already a short distance ahead of them.

They carried on in tense silence for a time, Kai eventually slowing down so Tim could catch up and lead the way to the camp he’d seen. Verdan was a little concerned by how worried Kai seemed. The normally unflappable sorcerer was visibly uneasy about something. Kai was also clearly not in the mood to talk about it, so Verdan contented himself with watching carefully and waiting to see what secrets this camp might have.

‘Here, this is it,’ Tim said softly, pointing to a point up ahead that Verdan couldn’t quite see.

‘Give me thirty seconds, then follow,’ Kai whispered back, waiting to make sure that they heard and understood before heading forwards at a slow pace. The sorcerer kept to the densest parts of the undergrowth and moved with surprising stealth, reaching the edge of the undergrowth just as Verdan started forward to follow him.

The clearing revealed itself as Verdan came closer, showing a rudimentary firepit, several crude structures made from local materials and a large pit of some sort. There was no sign of movement throughout the area, and Kai motioned for them to wait before stepping out of concealment. The sorcerer was still on edge and moved carefully through the camp, examining the firepit and structures intently before moving over to look into the pit.

‘We’re clear, come on out,’ Kai called out, his tense posture relaxing as he stepped away from the pit. ‘This is an old camp from the look of it, though not that old.’

‘How can you be sure?’ Verdan asked, moving into the camp to take a look around as well. This camp could house a dozen or more people by human standards, but something was telling him that this wasn’t a camp for humans.

‘The pit, the bones have been gnawed clean but don’t look too old. The firepit hasn’t been used in a long time either,’ Kai said, his tone somewhat absent as he stared off into the distance in thought.

Taking a look in the pit, Verdan saw that it was filled with bones of all shapes and sizes, everything from a skull big enough for a large bear down to small bones that would belong to rabbits and the like. Exactly why whoever had built this camp would have such a range of bones to dispose of baffled Verdan. He could understand the rabbits from hunting, but if they had to fight a bear, why bring its body back to their camp.

The brothers had matching worried expressions as they looked over the camp, both of them keeping one hand on their weapon at all times. They didn’t seem to recognise the camp the way that Kai did, but they'd seen enough to know it was bad news.

‘Talk to me. What are we looking at here?’ Verdan asked quietly, coming over to stand next to Kai as he spoke.

‘I’ve been north of Hobson’s Point a few times, the land around here hasn’t been in human hands for a long time, and it shows with the creatures that have taken over. One of the expeditions was exploring and looting an old fortress that’s a fair distance northeast of where we are now. When we got to the fortress, we found signs of habitation and someone using it as a resting spot. The leader of the group posted guards and made camp, setting us all to clearing the ruin and finding what we could.’ Kai’s voice was equally soft as he spoke, his gaze remaining fixed on a point in the distance only he could see.

‘The third day of being camped there was when they came, creatures with a wicked intelligence and a taste for eating sentient creatures. We must have been on a patrol route or something, as there was easily fifty or more of them that attacked us. Cyth are vile creatures, but they’re predictable, and the lesser cyth are almost mindless in some ways. These things, they were different. You could tell they were smart, that they enjoyed fighting and taking prisoners. We lost more than a few people, but we chased them down and avenged them, burning a camp like this, but bigger, to the ground in the process.’

‘You think it’s them again?’ Verdan asked, feeling a shiver run down his spine at the description Kai gave. He didn’t recognise the creatures that Kai was referencing, they were either something new since his time, or they were rare enough that they’d never come up.

‘Yes, I do. The camp looks similar in style and layout. Not to mention, it fits perfectly with their patterns and what I’ve since learnt of their culture. They prize skins and furs of powerful creatures, so it's no wonder that them moving into the region drove all sorts of monsters further south.’

‘That would explain the issues and why there have been so few monsters for us to encounter,’ Verdan said with a nod, not liking the answer but not able to deny that it fit with what they’d seen so far. ‘What do you call these creatures?’

‘Darjee,’ Kai all but spat the name out, gripping his spear tight in reflex. ‘After our encounter with them, I went out of my way to learn about them from other sorcerers. None of it was good.’

‘Interesting,’ Verdan murmured to himself. It sounded like the Darjee would have dealt with the majority of the local monsters, leaving them as the sole issue for Verdan and the others to deal with. ‘Tell me more, any detail could be important.’