The sun was falling into the horizon, and the temperature was steeply dropping with it. The team began to set up a fire. Before the night grew too dark, it the fire blazed beside them. They rested in a loose circle around it, Thomas and Seras staring at the many stars whilst Robert kept to his books. The red moon, with its rings like Saturn, was now bright in the sky. It had drifted further from the grey-blue goliath of a moon which had just begun to poke over the horizon.

“It still doesn’t feel real,” Seras said. “Every time I look at that sky...But maybe it’s because even after all this time, it's so terrifying that we really are stuck here.”

Thomas was inspecting the arrows he collected for traces of black gunk. He couldn’t find any. “Can you remember much else?” He asked, offhandedly.

Robert threw some wood into the fire. He had moved onto the book 'Banned History’. It seemed old and delicate, and he took good care when turning the pages.

Each text he read highlighted key aspects of this world, the banned texts conflicting against the worlds common knowledge, Robert felt as though he had to be careful after reading them not to accidently say something that would be considered heresy . It appeared that the 'high elves' were the reason for this, as they tried to strip away any reference to the old world with the help and investigative power of their extensively inquisitive church.

Robert had discovered that originally, there were no other races, it was just man. In that time, the world was in a rough kind of peace, where society was most interested in developing magic.

Magic, however, came at a cost . Though each mage trained for years before they could freely use their magic, they all soon developing a manna sickness as they were poisoned by their new powers.

Sometimes the sick changed in other ways. Elements of their humanity drifted away as their flesh mutated. Researchers and users of magic tried desperately to fix this problem and find a way that people could use magic for longer. In their attempts, they looked at the way magic was harnessed, and in doing so changing their crystalline mana, which in this world was more commonly known as a person's essence.

They had found that the sickness came from this essence, that as mana moved through a substance it left behind or altered crystalline mana. Though small amounts of mana could freely pass though, like the stretch of an elastic rubber, constant use in large numbers would create rigid transformations, permanently changing the structure like bending a plastic spoon. The altered internal essence of the person would leak their mana stores throughout their body turning their veins a dark blue and for those unlucky enough to live through this excruciating process may see even their flesh transform.

When the people of old altered a person's essence was a rough science, a dangerous one — and it even caused the occasional disaster.

Experiments usually happened on those close to losing themselves to manna sickness, and sometimes this only sought to enhance their mutations. Though these changes were notably unpredictable, commonly there were cancerous growths that developed sentience and the occasional spontaneous combustions. In the cases where the changes were stable, monstrosities were created, with mismatched proportions and strange abilities, or amorphic blobs with odd behavioral patterns. More so, all these changed creatures lost any semblance of a rational or empathetic psyche, turning into single minded beasts. Eventually, the mutated creatures spread far and covered areas of the landscape, a large cluster of them thought to have formed what is still called 'the dark zone.' *Oh, that’s the black mountainous area*, Robert thought as he realized how close he was. He contemplated whether it was worth a gander.

Eventually, it seemed that in a sort of collaboration of sentient life, the top researchers and magic users gathered, both to find an answer to the magic problem and to stop the more dangerous experiments that had started causing unfortunate problems. They pushed further into the alteration of a person's essence keeping all of the results, documents and using exact rigorous process. There they tried desperately to create a new person, one able to live longer and use magic with impunity, ending both the curses from using magic and their long disastrous history of experiments.

The results of their research and experimentation eventually bore fruit, and created what is assumed to be the current 'high-elves' and the lesser known 'dryad'. This remarkable achievement meant there was a method to turn humans into longer living beings that could use magic without much care for its poisoning effects. However, it came at a slight cost. As a person's essence was altered they were restricted in the forms of magic they could take. Each high elf was only able to use magic in its purest form, emitting something close to pure mana, unable to fully shape it into different effects. Though they could subvert this problem with the complicated use of crystals, which could redefine the mana’s properties. The Dryad however, used magic associated with nature, focusing mostly on enhancing the effects of environmental mana rather than forging them into something new. Meanwhile, human magic only increased in its variety.

“Hey Robert, tell me something interesting,” said Thomas.

Without taking his eyes off the book, Robert replied: "Birds can't fart.”

"What, do they just like explode if you give them beans?"

"Something like that.”

"That's cool man."

"Yeah, also in the book I just finished it said the high elves had a war with humanity."

"Really?" Seras asked.

“Yep, all the people in one place turned into high elves and dryads, but the high elves wanted to stay pure so they made their own kingdom, and it seems they didn’t and still don’t want anyone in. But the Dryads wanted to stay with nature and the people. And so the high elves were like, I know what to do, let's just kill all the people that don’t want to be slaves. You know?”

"Sounds reasonable," Thomas said sarcastically.

"One could say that," Robert said.

"Cut it out,” Seras interrupted. They looked to each other then carried on.

“Anyway, then the high elves didn’t want to spend any more of their own people because it was slow and hard for them and they didn't have many kids.”

So, they started messing with magical biology or whatever again and created a warrior race called the Orc. The race was all-male, was meant to be an honourable strong race to be ‘chosen’ by and they grew to adult by the age of seven or so.”

“If they are all male, then how do they breed?” Thomas asked.

“An elf or even man would be chosen by an esteemed Orc to raise the next generation of soldiers. It’s not clear on how. I think it’s a society thing. And their ‘genes’ or essence, seemed to overpower parent species.”

So, to carry on. They crushed the humans and Dryads. And then, it’s not clear what happened, but I think all dryads and orcs are now dead.”

Seras was staring into the fire. “Funny how the goblins are like that... All male I mean...”

Robert closed his book and saw the trouble in her eyes.

“Sure..." He said, uncertainly.

The three of them ended it on that. They took turns to try and sleep, only a few final words left drifting in the air.

“Gotta love story time,” Thomas said.

"Thanks man," Robert replied.

As the others drifted off, Robert kept watch, picking up a book to start reading by firelight until he saw a strange notification.

Notification

Cyclic thought defragmentation required.

Mental coherence decreased.

Delusion chance increased.

Temperature regulation decreased.

Mental statistic lowered 1 point. (8, Base 9)

Sleep required to regain base stats.

“Ah." Robert looked wearily over at his sleeping companions. He stoked the fire a bit more and went back to reading. He was starting a new book, 'The Heretic Mage'.

Robert read the synopsis. 'He was a danger to the kingdoms, a man of pure horror. Hugo the maleficent, experimenter and deranged killer. Having carried out experiments on countless people, he developed magic too strong and evil to comprehend. A blue-green fire would circle around him as he strode onto battlefields. Exiled to the dark zone for the crimes he had committed. The dark sorcerer, gone forever or too soon return, report any signs to your local official.’

Robert had enough and put down the book. He needed some rest and felt the morning sun coming on. He went over and kicked Thomas.

"You're up.”

Thomas stirred awake and rubbed his eyes. "Sure, yeah I've got it." Then Robert collapsed onto the ground, ready to sleep for the rest of the night.

The next day, they moved further into the maze, abandoning their camp. Further along the path, the horizon revealed a distant black mountain. Ashy clouds hovered overhead and trails of dust had drifted across, brushing against the barren red landscape.

They had come far enough that ash drifted in, covering the red rock with a thin layer of grey. Thomas and Robert tried to find their way back to spawn, but the maze-like land and similar-looking formations seemed to confuse them, some of the land seeming as though it had changed from before. They resigned themselves with the knowledge that it was intentionally hidden. It could have been impossible anyway.

Eventually, they saw tracks. There was a trail of footsteps left in a layer of ash over the floor.

Seras bent to the ground and rubbed ash onto her fingertips, inspecting the ground to see how thick the layer was and how long it took for another layer of sediment to cover it. Thomas saw the image of a small humanoid creature, slightly hunched over, appear above the tracks. It looked like a goblin.

“The hunt is on,” said Seras.

"Two seconds," Thomas retorted, then pulled out his bow and shot, making careful calculations in a moment’s notice. He saw the arrows slide through the sky and pierce what appeared to be a dirty rabbit.

"Let's eat first," he announced.

He had shot the rabbit as if to prove he was ready, but still he wondered about how much he had changed. Shooting a rabbit as though it was nothing, just for a source of food. He wondered if he could hunt and kill a living human-like thing. He wondered what the past him would think about what he had become after only these few days.

He looked around at all the tracks, seeing the outlines of animals and goblins. In one part, the outline of goblins fighting in dust appeared. He almost saw a story in their movements spread through the different tracks. Eventually, the fight seemed to stop, both goblins getting up and walking with each other along the tracks. They almost seemed like children.