The greenish glow filtering through the thick branches had guided them like a bad omen. The air, already heavy, was now laden with a pressure almost physical, a dull throbbing that resonated in their chests and hammered against their temples. It was the aura Zirel had sensed before—multiplied. It did not emanate from a single point, but from the whole hamlet, as if the very earth itself had been poisoned.
They had crawled to a ridge overlooking a natural clearing turned nightmare. This was no village, but a sordid makeshift camp, a lattice of low huts built from dried mud, bones, and twisted branches. Campfires crackled, casting grotesque, dancing shadows across a chaotic, teeming crowd. Goblins, lizard-men, kobolds, and other shapes harder to identify mingled in noisy disorder, bickering over scraps of meat or shoving each other for a place near the flames. The coexistence was tense, snarling, yet real. They were not killing each other. They obeyed a higher law: fear.
