The southward trek became a grinding testament to the Gloomweald's deceptive nature. Without a sun to guide him, Kaelen's sense of direction was based on a fragile intuition—the slight tilt of the land, the flow of streams, the memory of a trader's long-ago comment that "the trees grow thicker the deeper you go." He aimed for what he hoped was thinner growth.
But the forest was a liar. Trails that seemed promising would twist back on themselves or end in impassable thickets of thorny vines that clawed at his already tattered clothes. The perpetual twilight disoriented him, stretching hours into an unknowable expanse. Had he been walking for three days? Four? Time had lost its meaning, measured only in the gnawing of his stomach and the gradual emptying of his waterskin.
The Vokai essence was both a curse and a crutch. His senses, sharpened to a predatory keen, allowed him to spot the tell-tale, heart-shaped leaves of wild sorrel and the pale, bulbous roots of glowshrooms that were safe to eat. He dug for the roots with his knife, the cold energy within him making the task feel less like foraging and more like a hunt. He ate the sorrel raw, its sharp, lemony taste a shocking burst of flavor in the monotony of his existence.
*This is living,* a part of him whispered, a thought that felt both foreign and familiar. *Take what you need. Survive.* It was a simple, brutal logic that appealed to the growing wildness in his soul. The constant, low-grade whisper of the Vokai's memories—of hunting, of stalking, of a simpler existence driven by need—was slowly sanding down the edges of his humanity. The complex anxieties of his past life in Duskhaven were being replaced by primal concerns: food, water, shelter.
His caution, however, remained. It had evolved, becoming less the fear of a bullied boy and more the wariness of a prey animal that knows it is being watched. He moved like a ghost, his footsteps silent, his body low. He used the Vokai's sensory gift not as a constant pulse, which he found drained him and left a lingering headache, but as a occasional, focused tool. He would stop, close his eyes, and let the cold energy wash outwards in a brief, controlled wave, painting a picture of the immediate area in his mind. He felt the scuttling of insects, the warm-blooded heartbeat of a tree-hare, and once, the slumbering, massive presence of something he could only classify as a "gloom-drake," which he gave a wide, silent berth.
It was on the fifth day—or what he guessed was the fifth day—that he found the stream. It was wider than the others, flowing with a purpose that suggested it led somewhere. Hope, a feeling he'd almost forgotten, flickered in his chest. Following water was a cardinal rule of survival; it often led to settlements.
But as he knelt to refill his waterskin, he paused. The water wasn't clear. It had a faint, murky tinge, and a sour, metallic odor rose from it, similar to the tang he associated with the Vokai, but different. Weaker, more diluted. This was unclean. Tainted.
He remembered stories of "ghoul-water," streams that flowed from the demon-touched Scablands or through burial grounds, carrying corruption that could sicken a man or twist his mind.
*I could boil it,* he thought, but he had no fire. The damp wood of the Gloomweald resisted all his attempts to spark a flame with his knife and a stone. The risk of dehydration was now a immediate, physical pressure. His lips were cracked, his head throbbed with a dull ache. The wild roots and mushrooms provided moisture, but not enough.
The Vokai essence within him stirred, not with alarm, but with a strange... indifference. *Drink,* the alien instinct seemed to suggest. *What is corruption to a vessel that can contain it?*
It was a dangerous thought. Was this his own rationalization, or the Vokai's influence? The line was gone. His thirst was real. The water was here.
Cursing under his breath, he dipped his waterskin into the stream, the murky water swirling inside. He would have to risk it. He took a small, cautious sip. The water was cold, but it carried that unmistakable metallic aftertaste. He waited, his body tense, for cramps or nausea. None came. Instead, a faint, buzzing energy, similar to but distinct from the Vokai's coldness, tingled in his gut. It was not unpleasant, just alien.
Emboldened by desperation, he drank more deeply, then filled the skin to the brim. As he stood, a new sensation hit his enhanced senses. The taint in the water was like a trail. He could feel its source—not upstream, but to the east. The water was clean where he stood, but the corruption was seeping into it from the east bank. And with that sensation came another: the faint, coppery scent of blood and a sharp, clean aroma that was utterly out of place in the rot of the forest. Perfume. Refinement.
His head snapped up, his grey eyes narrowing. East. That wasn't deeper into the Gloomweald. According to his muddled mental map, east was the direction of the Sanguine Cities. He had veered far off course. He wasn't heading towards neutral territory; he was stumbling towards the borderlands between the Werewolf domains and the Vampier influence.
The tainted stream wasn't just a source of water; it was a border marker. And the scents on the air meant that border was currently active. A conflict, a skirmish, or perhaps just a patrol.
The cautious part of him, the part that was still Kaelen from Duskhaven, screamed to go west, to get away from this place. But the newer, wilder part, the part thrumming with Vokai energy and now a strange, tainted buzz, was intrigued. This was the world he needed to understand. This was where power clashed. And power was what he needed to survive.
He didn't flee west. Instead, he slung the full, questionable waterskin over his shoulder and began to move east, following the trail of tainted water and the promise of violence, his knife held tight in his hand. He was no longer just a lost boy in the woods. He was a shadow drifting towards the fray, drawn by the scent of blood and the chance to see the monsters of legend up close.