"I know you kiddos said you needed to leave early," Soze said with a yawn, "but don't you think this is a little much?"

It was very early in the morning, the moon and stars still hanging in the sky as the sun had yet to rise over the horizon, let alone the mountains that formed the valley. It was difficult to say without a clock, but it was probably around four in the morning. The valley was still nearly pitch black, traveling at this time seemed like a good way to get killed.

Soze walked with Loran and Alexx as they made their way to the bridge. The two unfortunately had to forgo a hot meal to save on time but were looking forward to returning to the camp and getting something from Calix.

"Maybe, but I want to get back before Bates has a chance to go exploring for two days in a row," explained Loran. "Like I said, I still expect him to screw something up. I don't want to give him more time than necessary."

"Besides, our PER is high enough to see even at night, we'll be fine," Alexx said, unconcerned.

It wasn't as though they possessed true night vision or anything, but for their heightened senses the light of the moon was enough for them to avoid stumbling around in the dark. As long as they kept their ears open it would be just as difficult to sneak up on them as it was in daylight.

Soze grunted before shooting a firm glare at Loran. "I'll say it again, if any of them are dead I'm putting that on you."

"I really don't think you need to worry so much man," Alexx said. "Bates might've been acting weird recently, but he's not stupid. As long as he doesn't run into a swarm of Iron Ants they'll be fine."

"I hope so," he sighed. "Well, I won't keep you two any longer. Hopefully the next time I see you guys is when you've found the nest."

"Fingers crossed," Loran said. "Alright, let's go."

"Right!"

The two dashed along the river, eager for a warm meal and to know what happened in their absence.

~~~~~

"They did WHAT!?"

When Loran and Alexx finally returned to the campsite, they were astonished to see the giant Mountain Goat corpse right outside the barrier. The carcass was being broken down by several of Bates' hunters at the direction of Calix, her nerves were quickly being forgotten in her frustration at the hunters' sub-par butchering skills.

Their initial thought was that Zed had decided to sneak off and leave Bates' crew to deal with the consequences, but after hearing the situation they didn't know what to think. Loran shouted almost reflexively from the sheer audacity of the situation.

Bates and his team had not done anything to expand the map.

They had completely ignored the job they were given to try taming a monster.

And they not only crippled two of their hunters with this stunt, but they once again endangered everyone in the camp by drawing the Mountain Goat over to them.

It was, in no uncertain terms, a complete failure that could have easily been avoided.

Loran massaged the bridge of his nose as he calmed down after hearing the explanation. "Nobody died right?"

"No casualties," Zed told him. "It was a monstrously close call with the guy who got squished, but aside from him and the guy with the amputated leg everyone else is fine. Just bruised bodies and egos."

The player who was hit directly by the Mountain Goat had been given several [INTERNAL BLEEDING] debuffs, which terrified the others as they had no way to apply Wolf's Boon to such injuries. Fortunately, someone had the idea to let the hunter eat the moss directly, which managed to remove the debuffs after a short time. The process still drained the camp's limited HP Potion supply in keeping him alive, but knowing that the moss could be used like this was certain to help in the future.

The moss even seemed to reduce the timers on his various [BROKEN BONE] debuffs, but since no one in the camp knew how to set bones, or had even tried to while attempting to keep him alive, likely meant that his legs wouldn't heal properly.

"Good," Loran said curtly.

Zed raised an eyebrow. "That no one's dead or that they still got hurt and or crippled for doing something stupid?"

"Both." Loran left Zed with Alexx and the two began talking about something, he wasn't paying attention. Loran's eyes were locked on the form of Bates sitting next to the campfire, dejectedly staring at the burning logs.

He glanced up at Loran as he approached, but didn't show much of a reaction before turning his attention back to the fire.

Loran stopped and stood next to Bates, a moment passed in silence.

"Why?" Loran asked a single question that both players understood was looking for many answers.

Bates closed his eyes before resting his head in his hands. "...I don't even know anymore."

Loran sighed, unfortunately knowing all too well that he wasn't going to get a better answer.

"I get that you have a problem with me, but I was put in charge of this expedition for a reason. You had a job and you fucked it up. I gave you a second chance and you royally fucked that up. You and your crew are going back to the village. Understand?"

Bates looked up, apparently to argue, but quickly shut his mouth. "...Okay." His expression wasn't one of distress or disappointment, but of understanding. "Let me leave a couple guys here though, to defend the camp while you guys explore. I'll talk to the others about a replacement group."

"Sounds good." Loran turned to walk away but stopped for a second. "You and your team are good at what you do, just try to not fuck it up next time."

Bates grunted and Loran walked away, wondering if Calix still had any breakfast for him and Alexx before they headed out.

~~~~~

It was almost noon by the time everyone was ready to leave the camp. Loran's party headed off into an unexplored section of the woods while Bates took his teammates back to the village.

They would need to go a bit slower since they were taking the injured players with them, but since no one was in critical condition they shouldn't have a problem reaching the village by nightfall. They said their goodbyes and apologies as they left, carrying the two crippled players on a pair of makeshift stretchers.

Loran, Alexx, and Zed made their way through the woods at a much slower pace than normal. Having gotten such a late start from having to travel from the village as well as clearing things up with Bates, they decided to take it a bit easier today by focusing on mapping the area around the campsite instead of going as far as they can in a single direction.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, there wasn't much of interest in the area around the campsite. Aside from a particularly strange clearing where the ground was made of smoothed stone instead of grass and dirt, the area was extremely plain.

They also didn't run into any predators, much to Zed's disappointment. It seemed like whatever creatures hunted in this part of the woods were likely scared away by the rampaging of the Mountain Goat from yesterday. The day quickly ended with no particular events worth mentioning.

The next few days went the same. Exploring deeper into the woods, discovering a few landmarks, and fighting more Iron Ant Drones. They never ran into any large groups like the five they found on the first day, but the ants did become more common as they explored further north. Every so often they made it over to the grasslands to search for the new players, but there was not a sign of any human life.

Finally, on the seventh day of the expedition, Loran and the others decided to head to the far north. After making their way to the grasslands with a few extra supplies, they went further away from the woods and set up camp, planning to go farther than ever the next day.

~~~~~

Loran's slumber was disturbed not by daylight, but by a truly awful smell. He had been exposed to worse thanks to Aman's cooking experiments and the Workshop's attempts at processing Iron Ant carapaces, but that didn't stop him from wanting to retch at what his bleary mind could only describe as Satan's morning breath.

He then felt something very large, fleshy, and wet drag across the entirety of his face.

Loran began flailing about as his instincts struggled to decide on either shoving the gross thing off of him or reaching for his weapons as he was very clearly being licked by a large monster.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, and violently gagging as some of the monster's saliva got into his mouth, Loran regained enough of his senses to realize that the monster in question was a Mountain Goat, being completely non-aggressive as it looked down at him curiously.

Loran, now fully awake and not fearing for his life, finally noticed the small herd of goats that had surrounded their camp, calmly grazing as if they couldn't care less about the presence of the players.

Loran then noticed the sound of raucous laughter coming from his two party members, who had evidently woken up earlier and were greatly entertained by his present distress.

"Well I'm glad to see the two of you are enjoying my suffering," Loran said as he sat up. A second later the curious Mountain Goat licked the back of his head, the saliva causing his hair to remain pointing upward.

"I don't know, the goats seem to be enjoying it too!" Alexx choked out in between fits of giggles. Zed was almost unresponsive as he doubled over with laughter.

"I hate all of you," Loran deadpanned.

"Hehehe, don't worry about it," Zed said as he began to calm down. "Be glad that your theory was right. These goats really are non-hostile as long as you don't provoke them."

That was true. Despite the three of them being so loud right next to them, the goats were almost completely unconcerned, with only a few even looking up from their grazing.

"It is kind of weird though," Loran said. "The ones from the other day were still on edge when Zed approached them. These guys are way too calm."

Zed shrugged. "The difference between approaching them and letting them approach us I suppose."

"The other group also had two kids with them right?" Alexx asked. "These guys all look like adults, maybe having children makes them more defensive?"

"Could be either of those, but let's not worry about it," Loran said. "We've got a long day ahead of us. Let's get ready."

The three of them broke down their camp and were ready to continue north by the time the sun was cresting over the mountains. Although, calling it a camp was something of an overstatement. Since they had no fresh meat and didn't want to draw more attention to themselves they hadn't lit a fire, and they had no tents or anything, so the "camp" consisted of just their supplies in a pile and a few pelts they used as blankets.

As the sun began to shine down on them, the three were up and walking, hoping that today would be the last day of their expedition.