We walked out of the Forest of Whispers like men leaving a tomb.

  One moment, we were encased in the oppressive, sound-dampening mist, our footsteps swallowed by the greedy earth. The next, we pushed through a final barrier of petrified branches and stepped out from under the canopy into a world that had sound again.

  The change was so abrupt it was physically jarring.

  A gust of wind howled past us, tearing at our cloaks. It whistled through the jagged rocks and rattled the dry brush. The sound was harsh, abrasive, and utterly relentless. To me, it sounded like a storm.

  To Faelar, it sounded like music.

  The dwarf, who had been trudging in a state of sullen, claustrophobic silence for the past two days, stopped dead. He dropped his pack. He took a deep, shuddering breath of the open air, his chest swelling until the rivets on his leather armor creaked.

  He looked around at the vast, empty landscape before us, a slow, beatific grin spreading across his face.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth.

  “Hallo?” he called out, his voice tentative, testing the air.

  A second later, a faint, ghostly echo returned from a distant rock formation. “...allo?”

  His grin widened into a triumphant, toothy spectacle. He took another, much deeper breath. He planted his feet.

  “HALLO!” he roared. The sound burst from him like a cannon shot, a pure expression of auditory and spiritual relief.

  “...ALLO!” the echo roared back, bouncing off the distant cliffs.

  “HAH! It answers!” Faelar bellowed, slapping his thigh. “A proper world! A world with manners! A world that knows how to hold a conversation!”

  “Please stop screaming at the geography,” Liam muttered, rubbing his ears. “We just left a forest full of things that wanted to eat our souls. Do we really need to announce our arrival to whatever lives out here?”

  “Let them come!” Faelar laughed. “At least I’ll hear them coming! No more sneaking ghosts! Just honest, loud monsters!”

  The world he was so pleased with was, by any objective standard, a ruin.

  Before us stretched the Ashen Plains. It was a vast, desolate expanse of grey, wind-swept dust that extended to the horizon. The ground was a cracked, barren tapestry under a sky the color of a day-old bruise.

  The skeletons of ancient, blackened trees clawed at the air, their limbs stark and accusing. They looked like they had been burned centuries ago, but the wood had never rotted, petrified by the same dark magic that poisoned the soil.

  A fine, gritty ash—the cremated remains of whatever life had once thrived here—hung in the air. It coated our tongues with the taste of copper and stung our eyes.

  We began our trek across the plains. The silence of the forest was replaced by the mournful howl of the wind and the crunch of dry, dead earth under our boots.

  “Well,” Liam said, his voice dry as the dust at our feet. He pulled his scarf up over his nose. “This is a significant improvement. I was growing tired of all the lush greenery and cheerful birdsong back in the swamp. This is much more conducive to a grim and hopeless mood. It really highlights the futility of existence.”

  “At least we can hear ourselves think,” Faelar grumbled, kicking at a clump of ash that exploded into a grey cloud. “And I don’t have to listen to that wizard whispering about feelings.”

  “My point,” Elmsworth interjected, striding forward with an energy that defied his age, “is that our victory over the wraiths was a textbook example of psycho-thaumaturgical resonance! Faelar’s primal emotional state—a raw, unrefined rage—served as a far more potent catalyst for Nugget’s latent abilities than our more nuanced, civilized emotions!”

  The wizard was waving his staff around, nearly hitting Willow.

  “So you’re sayin’ my bein’ angry is better than your thinkin’?” Faelar asked, looking proud.

  “In this specific, highly unusual circumstance, yes!” Elmsworth confirmed cheerfully. “It proves my long-held theory that in the face of purely ethereal threats, a sufficiently powerful tantrum is more effective than a meticulously crafted spell matrix! It’s a revolutionary concept! ‘The Strategic Application of Dwarven Belligerence.’ I shall publish a monograph!”

  “So the plan from now on is to just get Faelar really, really angry at everything we fight?” Willow asked, her brow furrowed in concern. She was walking with her hand over her mouth to keep out the dust. “That doesn’t seem very healthy for him. Or for the people around him.”

  “It’s a valid tactic,” Liam mumbled. “And it’s not hard. Just tell him the ale is watered down.”

  As they argued, my attention was on the horizon.

  Miles ahead, silhouetted against the sickly yellow light of the setting sun, was a dark shape. It was too blocky to be a rock formation, too regular to be a tree.

  “Hold up,” I said, raising my hand. The team stopped.

  I pointed with my spear. “There. Looks like a caravan.”

  It took us another hour of trudging through the ankle-deep ash to reach it. The closer we got, the clearer it became that this was not a camp. It was a graveyard.

  It was a small merchant caravan, or what was left of it. Three wagons sat motionless in the grey waste. Their canvas covers were ripped to shreds, flapping in the wind like tattered flags of surrender.

  “Weapons out,” I ordered.

  We approached slowly. The silence of the plains felt heavy here.

  The wagons were destroyed. Wheels were broken, spokes sticking out like shattered bones. Axles were snapped. Crates and barrels had been smashed open, their contents—bolts of cloth, sacks of grain, simple pottery—spilled and scattered across the ashen ground, already half-buried by the ceaseless wind.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Right,” I said, my hand resting on the pommel of my sword. “Spread out. Look for survivors. Be cautious. If this was bandits, they might still be watching.”

  My command, as usual, was merely a polite suggestion for the start of the chaos. The team broke apart, their investigation a chaotic, conversational autopsy of the scene.

  Liam moved like a shadow, checking the perimeter. Faelar walked right up to the lead wagon and kicked a broken wheel. Elmsworth began collecting samples of the spilled grain.

  “No bodies,” Liam called out, his voice sharp with interest. He was kneeling by the second wagon, examining the ground with the focus of a hawk. “No blood trails of any significance. A few scuffs, signs of a struggle. But this wasn’t a slaughter. It was an abduction.”

  “Abduction?” I asked, joining him. “Slavers?”

  “Maybe,” Liam said. “But look at the tracks. There are boot prints—the merchants—but there are no horse tracks leaving the scene. And no tracks of attackers coming in.”

  Faelar’s voice boomed from the other side of the wagon. “And look at this!”

  We rounded the vehicle. The dwarf was on his hands and knees, peering underneath the chassis.

  “The whole underside is ripped to shreds!” Faelar shouted, pointing up at the floorboards of the wagon. “Look at the wood! It’s splintered inward. And the axles… they aren't just broken. They’re cracked clean in two from below! Whatever did this, it didn't come from the road. It came up from the ground!”

  “He’s right,” Willow said. Her voice was a soft, horrified whisper.

  She was standing ten feet away, staring at a patch of churned-up ash. It wasn't just disturbed dirt. It was a crater.

  She pointed. “They burrowed. They came up from right underneath them.”

  I walked over. The ground was pockmarked with the mouths of wide, low tunnels. They were roughly circular, about three feet in diameter, diving steeply into the earth.

  Liam moved to the mouth of one of the tunnels. He crouched, his silver eyes narrowing as he studied the rim.

  The tracks were clear in the fine, grey dust. They were wide, multi-clawed, and deeply unsettling.

  Without a word, Liam reached into the pouch at his belt. He pulled out the object he had looted from the Cultist Commander back in the quarry—the black, barbed claw attached to a leather cord.

  He held it up next to a clear print in the ash.

  He didn’t have to say anything. It was a perfect match. The claw fit the track like a key in a lock.

  “Grave Badgers,” Liam said, his voice a low, grim rumble. “Big ones.”

  The pieces clicked into place with a cold, sickening finality.

  “A subterranean ambush,” Elmsworth mused, stroking his beard. His face was alight with academic fascination rather than horror. “The cultists use the badgers as sappers. They tunnel beneath a target—likely tracking the vibrations of the wagons—create a moment of chaos and terror as the ground erupts, and then drag their victims down into the earth before a proper defense can be mounted. It’s… it’s tactically brilliant.”

  “Brilliant?” Faelar spat on the ashen ground. He looked furious. “It’s cowardly! It’s goblin work! A proper fight is face-to-face, axe-to-sword, not clawing at a man’s ankles from a hole in the dirt! There’s no honor in it! It’s vermin behavior!”

  “Honor is a luxury for those who can afford to lose,” Soul-Drinker hissed from Liam’s belt. The dagger sounded delighted. “Survival is for those willing to be creative. I approve. The sheer terror of being pulled down into the dark… quite exquisite. I wonder if they scream underground?”

  Liam slapped his belt hard. “Shut up.”

  We stood there for a long time, the wind howling around the ruined wagons. The implications of our discovery settled over us like a shroud.

  The enemy we were marching towards was not just ahead of us. They were, potentially, right beneath our feet. Every step we took was on top of their roof.

  “We can’t track them underground,” I said finally. “We have to keep moving toward Vorash. But we need to rest.”

  That night, we made a tense, uneasy camp in the lee of the wrecked caravan. The splintered wood of the wagons offered a meager shield against the relentless, ash-filled wind.

  The mood was grim. Faelar was uncharacteristically quiet, brooding over the dishonorable nature of an enemy who fought like rats. Willow was sitting with her back to a wheel, staring at the tunnels with wide, fearful eyes.

  The problem of dinner was made more acute by the gritty ash that seemed to get into everything. Our rations were gone. The rabbit stew was a fond memory.

  As I grimly laid out our last, pathetic scraps of dried fruit, Elmsworth clapped his hands together.

  “Nonsense!” the wizard declared, standing up. “A lack of conventional ingredients is merely an opportunity for culinary innovation! I shall prepare the evening’s meal!”

  “Oh no,” Liam groaned. “Please, Elmsworth. We’ve suffered enough today.”

  “Quiet, boy! I have been saving a special requisition for just such an occasion!”

  What followed was a horrifying and fascinating spectacle.

  Elmsworth set up the iron pot over the fire. He started with a base of his glowing green, nutritionally-optimized slurry, squeezing three tubes of the stuff into the boiling water.

  To this, he added a handful of the strange, rubbery-looking lichen he had scraped from the trees in the Forest of Whispers.

  “For texture!” he claimed.

  He crumbled in the last of our hard, stale cheese. And then, for a thickening agent, he produced a small velvet pouch from his inner robe. He opened it and sprinkled a fine, glittering grey powder into the pot.

  “What is that?” Liam asked, his voice filled with deep suspicion. He leaned away from the pot as the powder hit the liquid and sizzled.

  “Powdered moon rock,” Elmsworth said, as if it were the most common spice in the world. “Obtained from a very reputable meteorite trader in the Undercity. An excellent source of essential minerals, and it adds a delightful, effervescent quality to any broth.”

  He stirred the concoction with his staff.

  The resulting stew was a thick, bubbling, grey sludge. It glowed with a faint, radioactive green pulse. It smelled faintly of old socks, ozone, and regret.

  “Dinner is served!” Elmsworth announced cheerfully, ladling the goo into bowls.

  We all just stared into the bowls.

  “I’m not eatin’ that,” Faelar stated flatly. “It’s glowing. Food shouldn't glow unless it’s magic ale.”

  “I’d rather chew on my own boots,” Liam agreed. “At least I know where they’ve been.”

  “Decadent weakness,” Soul-Drinker whispered. “Starve, then. More room for hatred.”

  Driven by a hunger that finally outweighed our survival instincts, we eventually relented.

  I took the first, hesitant spoonful. I closed my eyes, prepared to gag.

  It hit my tongue.

  It was a strange, tingling sensation, like licking a nine-volt battery. Followed by… warmth.

  And then, a flavor that was utterly bizarre, completely unidentifiable, and yet… incredible.

  It was savory. It was earthy. It had a strange, piquant aftertaste that reminded me of a thunderstorm breaking on a hot day.

  I took another spoonful. “It’s… good,” I said, my voice filled with disbelief.

  The others, seeing I hadn’t immediately died or dissolved, cautiously tried it.

  “By my ancestors…” Faelar said, his mouth full of the glowing sludge. His eyes widened. “It’s… it’s delicious! What is this flavor? It’s like… like lightning and cheese!”

  “Ah!” Elmsworth beamed, delighted. “That would be the subtle umami notes of the Grieving Toadstool reacting with the ionized particles in the moon rock! A remarkable synergistic effect! I do believe I’ve made a breakthrough!”

  We ate in a state of confused, guilty pleasure. It was, undeniably, one of the best meals we’d had in weeks.

  There was a side effect, however.

  As Faelar finished his bowl, he reached for his axe to move it.

  SNAP.

  A visible spark of blue static electricity jumped from his finger to the metal handle.

  “Ouch!” Faelar yelped, shaking his hand.

  “Interesting,” Elmsworth noted, watching Liam’s hair slowly begin to stand on end as the elf ate. “It appears the ionization has a lingering electrostatic charge. Avoid metal surfaces for the next hour, and do not kiss anyone. You might stop their heart.”

  We ate the rest of the meal carefully, using wooden spoons.

  As the strange warmth of the food settled in our bellies, the grim mood returned. The comfort of a full stomach couldn't erase the reality of where we were.

  The ground beneath us no longer felt safe. Every vibration, every shift of the wind, felt like a warning.

  I took the first watch. I stood on the broken remains of a wagon, my spear in hand. The metal shaft gave me a small shock, a reminder of the moon-rock stew.

  The Vorash ward-stone in my pouch pulsed with a steady, familiar warmth.

  I looked out over the endless, desolate plains. The ash swirled in the wind like a sea of ghosts.

  The enemy we were hunting was not just ahead of us. They were cunning. They were monstrous.

  And they were right under our feet, waiting for us to make a mistake.