They picked their way carefully out of the library. A couple of steps were missing on the stairs, having been kicked clear by the ascending daemonraptors, and so they used caution. Kaldalis led the way back outside slowly and carefully, inching his darkvision circle forward as he went to be sure they weren’t going to blunder into an ambush.

Once they were outside, he relaxed a little. The darkvision circle gave him a clear view of his immediate surroundings, but there was enough ambient light to dimly see the other surroundings. The larger moon wasn’t visible in the sky yet, but the smaller one - Arma - was on the horizon, augmenting the faint starlight with enough silvery moonlight to render their surroundings more than just darkened outlines.

The prickling feeling of being watched was gone now, so he didn’t bother with resuming the sneaking again and just walked through the ruined town towards his quest marker.

“We’ll see how late we have to stay out,” Kaldalis said, keeping his voice low. “If we can wrap up my quest quick and easy, maybe we can do another check for a dungeon entrance here.”

“After that library, I’m not confident,” Dalgaard whispered back. “Also, why are we whispering?”

“Old habit,” Kaldalis whispered with a shrug. “Did you ever live in dorms? Normal speaking volume at night means the entire fucking floor is a part of the conversation.”

“Alright, fine,” Dalgaard said. “Let’s just get out of here, though. Dangerous or not, it’s fucking creepy here in the dark.”

“You think this is bad?” Kaldalis smirked. “Have you ever been in the forest at night?”

As soon as they entered the treeline, it was pretty clear that they hadn’t.

Dalgaard had put a healthy distance between them for the walk through the ruins. Kaldalis wasn’t sure if they planned to use him as bait for any traps or monsters they might blunder into, keeping their distance to avoid being caught up in anything he stepped in, or if they just liked their personal space.

That went out the window as soon as the jungle closed in around them. They picked up the pace a bit to keep just one step behind him instead, almost uncomfortably close.

Kaldalis didn’t blame them, though.

The canopy reduced them again to their darkvision circles, and the dense trees around them meant they couldn’t even see that far. Human-like shapes loomed out of the darkness, briefly terrifying before they resolved themselves into leafy fern-like bushes, or strangely-arranged vines hanging from low branches.

Strange and alien sounds came from seemingly everywhere at once, and none of that Hollywood bullshit. There were no kookaburra cries and growling dogs. There was strange chatter from above that sounded like birds mimicking human voices very badly. A distant roar like a bedsheet being ripped in half echoed through the trees in one unbroken note for what felt like several minutes. There were sounds of rustling brushes that always felt like they were dangerously close, but never close enough that they could even see the brush moving when they approached the source.

Kaldalis tried, above all other concerns, to appear calm. As long as the kid thought he had control of the situation, they’d follow him into the mouth of hell. If he panicked, they’d panic soon after. If they panicked and bolted back for camp, could he keep up with them? Would he? Or would he turn around and push onward towards his own goal? He didn’t know the answer to that question, so he needed to keep that panic from taking hold.

All he had to do was move confidently towards his objective. It was all going to work out for him naturally, right? He just had to act like it.

Just the same, he kept his spear in his hands, using it to push foliage aside when it blocked his path. Ready at any moment to mash his mental hand across all his cooldowns and swing away wildly. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, right?

After about twenty minutes, Kaldalis saw his minimap change. There was a dark splotch on it up ahead. He diverted course at an angle and saw that the quest marker pointed towards the splotch. It must have been the fishing point, then. With a grimace, he diverted course back towards it. Moonlight was wasting, after all. If he could only catch the fish at night, he needed to race to get as much time as he could in the water. Not to mention that the sooner he was done, the sooner they could get back to camp to collapse for the night.

“We’re close,” Kaldalis warned quietly. “Keep on your guard.”

“So what are we looking for?” Dalgaard whispered back. “Horde? More dinosaurs? Something else?”

Kaldalis wordlessly pushed forward. A few feet ahead, the foliage parted and revealed a clearing. The dark splotch on his minimap filled in with a brilliant azure blob, but his attention was captured by the placid scene before him.

As they broke through into the clearing, the larger moon - Kaskuh - was now in the sky, igniting the scene with blue-white light.

A large lake glimmered ahead, moving too much to become a mirror-like reflection of the starry sky. He presumed the water was coming up from an underground spring, and nearby there was the soft susurrus of the stream they had been following flowing out of the lake and into the jungle. Between the waterline and the treeline, the ground was covered in thick, soft grass growing up to his knees. Somehow it seemed like the sounds of the jungle vanished behind them even though they weren’t exactly on the far side of any kind of soundproof barrier.

It was a beautiful spot of serenity amidst all the peril that surrounded them on all sides. It was almost enough to make him forget that this was all in service to Onirioago’s threats.

Almost.

“I’m not sure if I should tell you, but it will soon become pretty obvious,” Kaldalis said. “I’m looking for a particular fish.”

After he said that, there wasn’t a sudden change in his quest objectives, so he assumed he was fine.

“That would be hard to hide,” Dalgaard agreed, “unless you were going to try and convince me that you just wanted to stop abruptly for a several-hour fishing break and then we turn around and go back.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s all I can tell you, though,” Kaldalis said. “If you don’t mind chilling somewhere instead of looking over my shoulder, I’ll catch what I need, tuck it in my inventory, and we can get on out of here.”

“Fine by me,” Dalgaard said, looking around. “I hope you don’t mind if I take a seat in the grass over here. I’m a bit worn out from the day.”

They found a spot near the water, far enough back that Kaldalis felt that he could catch what he was looking for without them getting too clear a look at it. He took a moment to replace his hook with one of the spinner lures, and cast it out into the water.

“So, you like fishing, huh?” Dalgaard asked from their seat in the grass.

“Yeah,” Kaldalis said, “big fan of it, actually.”

“Why’s that?”

“Peaceful. Relaxing. But at the same time, productive.”

“Alright, I could see that,” they said. There was a soft rustle of grass, and Kaldalis turned to see that they were laying down now, staring up at the starry sky. “Especially if the quests bring you out into beautiful places like this.”

“I can’t say if it’s a common occurrence or not,” Kaldalis said, slowly reeling his line in. He knew the motion was causing the metal spoon on his hook to spin and flash in whatever low light was filtering into the water. “But it’s been nice so far.”

“So how does it work?” they asked. “How would I get started?”

“Well, if you’re a crafter, you should be able to make a quick cheap rod from some sticks and whatever,” Kaldalis said. “And then the quartermaster can sell you some bait. After that, it takes some practice to get the minigame down, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty smooth from there on out.”

“I might do that. As long as the minigame isn’t too annoying.”

“I’d show you how it works,” he said, “but if I catch what I’m after and you’re staring at me, I might throw the whole quest out.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not looking to start tonight. I’ve got too much other skills to level.” They yawned audibly. “And so much leveling to catch up on. Now that the dungeon is available for farm runs instead of being eaten up by the Flicker runs, there’s a lot of experience to be had there.”

Kaldalis hadn’t considered that the runs they were doing were slowing everyone down. Had the whole encampment’s progression stagnated while they were pushing people through? Were they having a negative effect on the health of the whole adventure?

He didn’t have time to think about it before his line went taut and he was happy to be distracted by the fishing minigame. Really, he didn’t want to think too hard about the long-term effects of his actions if they were going to reflect poorly on himself.