The caravan entered the labyrinth. Linden immediately noticed that the passages were well used, and much bigger than the ones he crossed before. There was more moss, and some other vegetation, and after it had started getting dark, it didn’t take long for glowworms to arrive.

And of course, they started to fly around Edward.

“Are you using glowworm attracting salve?” Asked Mark.

“E… Yeah, why do you ask?”

“use it sparingly next time.” Came the reply. “unless you want to turn into a lamp.”

Ed could see how that could be bad in a situation when he didn’t want to get spotted. But then was the matter of repelling bloodsuckers.

“What about ticks? Will just a small amount make them go away?”

“Mostly, yes, but not all of them. It’s a tradeoff. You can make crimson moths run away like you are their mother in law, but you turn into a lantern yourself. Then again, that will attract the shining moths, and they are an awesome fish bait once they eat enough glowworms to start glowing themselves.” “Oh, there it is, a shining moth.” Mark pointed at a big insect. “Now stop distracting me, we will be checking another landmark.”

Linden figured it would be better to refrain from pointing out that it was the Yellow Key who started this conversation.

“Hey, I didn’t know about that salve.” Said Mel.

“Then once we return, you should go to the archives, enter a vault, and study more. It’s a recipe available for green keys, and pretty popular among the ones that like fishing.” Replied Mark, dividing his focus between work and lecturing his brother.

Mel responded with silence.

Mark continued to check the landmarks. They looked like black tablets of moderate size and different shapes, screwed into a rock.

Both explorers were checking them with a map and some notes.

The group walked into a hall. It was an open space with the sky perfectly visible. Suddenly, a squarish box on Marks’ belt started to make noise.

Kkrrrkt… krrkkt … krkrtkrrrkt…

Shit. That sounded like a Geiger-Müller counter.

Were they going to die from radiation poisoning, skin and hair falling off? Edward had to admit to being scared.

As to confirm his worries, both explorers suddenly stopped, and ordered the caravan to do the same.

“Halt, don’t move now, everyone. There is some maelodor here, we are going to stay in one place until it passes.”

“Hold the animals, don’t let them run off, or you’ll never see them again.”

The caravan stopped, people and wagons were moved closer to each other. Explorers popped something into their mouths.

Once everyone calmed down, it was time for questions.

“Mr. Mark, what’s a maelodor?”

“Never heard of it? It’s a sort of a mist, maybe fog, that’s invisible to the eye, and screws with your head. Why do you think this place is called ‘Wandering Rocks’, huh? Maelodor in this place mostly fuc… ekhem, messes with your sense of direction. Oh, some people call it 'Bad Air', by the way."

“Is that why we are sitting in one place and breathing into each others’ backs? To not get lost?” Ed wanted to confirm what he learned and make sure they really wouldn’t be dying horribly after losing all their hair.

“Yes. You would be an easy picking for some of this places’ predators if you ran off alone into the maze.” Came the reply from the yellow key.

“Aren’t we in a pretty bad place then? There is multiple ways out of this part, so we could get lost in a multitude of different ways.”

“Yes. I would prefer to get that reading earlier, but our krrrt’o meter is an old one. And now that we are here, there is no choice but to stay until the air is blown away.”

“Krrrt’o meter?” A funny name.

“It’s actually called a ‘blah, blah, something or the other’ measurement instrument, but it’s a difficult name and it goes ‘krrrt’, so everyone is calling it that.” Mark clarified.

Everyone went silent. Linden tried to see this mist thing, but to no avail. All He could see was vibrant green plant life, a lot of moss, mushrooms, (some of which were lightly glowing), the sky, other people, and the glowworms.

It was still dark.

“It probably won’t go away for some time, we should take a nap.” Said Bark.

“True, I wanted to reach the exit without breaks, and then rest in the usual place, but I guess that won’t be possible.” Replied Mark “Okay people, lets sleep in shifts.”

Bedrolls and blankets were taken out. Some people went to sleep, while others were awake to watch for possible threats.

Linden tried to taste the air. No results again.

Then He dozed off, and woke up again at a shift change. Mel went to sleep and it was Marks’ turn to pay attention.

That’s when Linden smelled something new. A musky smell, like a wet dog, except with a whiff of marjoram.

“Mr. Mark? Does the maelodor smell like a dog wrapped in culinary herbs?”

“Culinary herbs you say?” Replied the explorer. “Does it smell like a coarse meat roll that went a bit stale?”

“I dunno… maybe?”

Mark sniffed the air, and frowned. “Hey, somebody wake up Mel.”

After that was done, and the green key arrived at his brothers’ side, Mark revealed the cause of his worries.

“There might be murisee out here.“

“Murisee? At this time of year?” Replied moderately surprised Mel.

“Apparently. Let’s be cautious.”

“What’s a murisee?” Linden again, with an obvious question.

“The thing you smelled, most likely.” “Hey, people! Hold the animals, don’t let them run away! Pay special attention to the ones with a tendency to get startled!”

The smell got stronger. This time both explorers had worried expressions. The animals started looking nervous.

From one of the passages, there came three canines. They looked like dogs, except a bit longer, and with more powerful tail, and dexterous paws.

Mr. Dalton, the caravan leader, raised his blunderbuss to meet them.

“Don’t shoot.” warned younger explorer. “You will startle the animals, and that’s just making Murisees job easier”

“That’s right. They hunt using maelodor. They approach various pack animals and growl, scaring their prey into scattering, and pick their meal once it can’t return to the rest.”

Ed supposed ‘pack animals’ include human caravans.

As to confirm that suspicion, one of the Murisees started snarling and growled. Linden was instantly reminded of stories about tigers and their roars, which were supposed to be especially terrifying thanks to their special frequencies.

He felt his hair rise a little.

The horses were a bit more than startled. Their panic was barely being restrained by coachmen, who grabbed them by their muzzles.

“Shouldn’t have left my bow at home.” Muttered green key.

The Yellow key, mark, simply grabbed a short club from his backpack, and readied himself to throw it at the canines.

But He wasn’t as fast as Linden, who had his sling already in hands, stone in its pocket.

Swish, crack, thump. Bulls eye.

One of them out of the game, the murisee withdrawed back into the maze.

Everything calmed down, horses once again manageable.

Mark looked at Linden. “Next time, don’t be so sure you want to attack first. It’s fine with murisee, since ironically they are pretty cowardly, but you will encounter different things in the future and some of them won’t be strangers to vengeance.”

“Okay Mr. Mark. Though I only slung the stone once I saw you preparing to throw a club.” Came reply.

“I wasn’t necessarily going to throw it to kill. Next time, ask first.” The explorer paused “Or let me do my job.” Another, longer pause came, and after it: “But good work.”

“Wow, you really sounded responsible here.” – Mel destroyed his brothers’ moment. “Anyway, Let’s take that murisee with us, it will help you pay for food at least.”

That was a sound advice. Linden was so broke, that lugging a carcass around seemed like a great idea if it could help him earn anything.

He walked over to the fallen murisee. It was still breathing, just unconscious. A quick strike to the skull with a nearby stone and a cut to the neck was enough to take care of that. It didn’t even twitch that much.

He looked at it again. It was the size of a Labrador retriever, except slightly longer, and with thick tail, which added to the weight.

Linden started field dressing the animal. He sliced into the pelvic canal, cutting around the anus, and freeing few inches of colon. It was an unnecessarily difficult operation, and he decided he would later get a knife with a narrower blade.

Then, He positioned the murisee on its back, removed the genitalia and a bladder, sliced the stomach from pelvic bone up to the sternum, cutting with the belly of his knife, not allowing its tip to enter abdominal cavity. It was important not to damage the entrails, as it could get messy if those were cut.

He pulled out most of internal organs, and reached inside the carcass to cut the diaphragm and the windpipe. Ed pulled out the heart, liver and lungs, and set them aside. Located the kidneys.

The edible internal organs were set on a piece of cloth Ed previously got out of his backpack, while inedible thrown away. Something would eat them anyway.

He was left with a carcass, and chose to skin it later. He would need to drag that thing with him, so he wanted the hide to continue protecting meat.

“You should cut off its head.” Linden heard a voice from behind him.

“What about the brain?” He replied to the explorer, and got an answer from Mel.

“After you cracked the skull open? It will just spill out. Better to leave it here”

So Ed cut the neck further, and twisted the head to break the spine. He could just chop through it, but he wanted to conserve his knives edge. For the same reason, he didn’t chop through the ribs while taking out the contents of the ribcage earlier.

After that, he walked over to a small puddle of mostly clean rainwater, and cleaned himself of blood.

“Good, you even took the lungs.” Green key praised Linden. “Most people leave them, thinking them inedible, but they will be appreciated by anyone in the Orphanage.”

“’The’ Orphanage?” A question from Ed.

“Yea, there are several places for homeless kids to stay, but the Isabella’s Orphanage is by far the best.” “They have a deal with the guild, you know? Their kids can become explorers without the registration fee, and they get work even before that. The basic gear you’re gonna buy at the guild? It was all made by Izabella’s.”

“Are the kids happy about it?”

‘Yup, happy about child labor. If any children’s right activist heard me right about now, they would get a stroke’. Thought Linden.

“Of course man, working kids have better life. At Isabella’s, children don’t have to work, but if they do, they get some money and better food.” “It’s their plates that meat of yours will be falling into, at least some of it.” “ If you sell it to the guild that is, but I don’t see any reason not to.”

Just as the green key said all that, the wind picked up, and krrrt’o meter stopped annoying everyone with its noises.

“Alright people, we are going to move now!” Shouted Mark, and everyone started picking themselves up.

Mr. Dalton was nice enough to allow the murisee carcass on one of his wagons without payment, undoubtedly because Ed was a child.

Linden was for once glad to be a kid.

The caravan resumed its journey through Wandering Rocks.