The forest was wrong.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just subtly misaligned, like something I'd seen before but couldn't quite remember correctly. The spacing between the trees felt off, the sightlines too open in places and too blind in others.
The kind of terrain that didn't announce danger.
The kind that let you decide whether you were paying attention.
I recognized it the same way you recognize a room you've only ever walked through once—by the shape of it, not the details.
Early map.
First stretch outside Candlekeep.
My gaze drifted down, following the line where bark met dirt, where roots pushed up through soil like they'd given up pretending to stay hidden.
And that's when it clicked.
There was something here.
Not instead of danger.
Alongside it.
The forest hadn't stopped being a problem just because it remembered to offer rewards. It could do both. It often did.
And I remembered the diamond.
Not as an image, exactly—more as a habit. A memory of clicking near the base of a tree, of the cursor changing when it wasn't supposed to. Of that quiet, almost smug satisfaction when the inventory updated with something that definitely hadn't been earned through combat or dialogue.
A diamond. Just sitting there. Hidden well enough that most people never found it, but not well enough to be a secret forever.
Free money. Early money.
Enough to matter.
I slowed without meaning to, eyes scanning the treeline more carefully now. One tree looked like any other. Then another. Then another.
I couldn't remember which one.
That was the problem.
Still, this wasn't a risk. Not really. We were already here. The road was quiet. Nothing was moving that I could see.
Gold meant gear. Gear meant options. Options meant fewer moments where I had to trust people I'd already decided wouldn't last.
This wasn't greed.
This was preparation.
I didn't say anything.
That part was deliberate.
Xzar didn't need to know there was something valuable nearby. Montaron definitely didn't. And Imoen—Imoen would ask why, and once I started explaining, I'd have to explain more than I was ready to.
So I kept walking. Slower. Casual. Like I was just taking in the scenery.
Imoen noticed immediately.
"You okay?" she asked. "You've been staring at the trees."
I shrugged. "Just thinking."
She studied me for a moment, then nodded, like she'd arrived at an answer that satisfied her. "That's fair," she said gently. "A lot's happened."
Xzar's eyes flicked toward me at that, bright with interest.
"Oh yes," he murmured. "Thinking always leaves such visible traces."
I ignored him.
Montaron stopped walking—not abruptly, but enough to make it clear he'd decided something.
"You planning something," he said, "or just losing focus?"
"Planning," I replied quickly.
He frowned. "Then say it."
"In a minute."
That earned me a long look. Then a grunt.
"Don't wander," he said. "Yer eyes are everywhere but the road."
He started moving again.
I told myself it wouldn't take long.
That was the justification that settled in first—quiet, reasonable, and completely unchallenged. We weren't stopping. Not really. Just slowing. Just checking. A glance here, a step there.
The road stayed where it was. The forest didn't move. Nothing leapt out screaming consequences.
So I drifted.
Not enough to be obvious. Just enough that my feet carried me closer to the treeline while my eyes stayed on roots and bark instead of shadows and distance. One tree. Then another. Each one wrong in a slightly different way.
Behind me, footsteps shifted.
"Hey," Imoen said softly. "We still heading the same way?"
"Yes," I said, a little too quickly. "Just… uneven ground."
She looked down at the road, then back up at me. "Looks fine to me."
Xzar hummed. "The ground always looks fine before it isn't."
No one laughed.
Montaron stopped again.
This time it wasn't subtle.
"We're spreading," he said. "That's not an accident."
I straightened. "I know where I'm going."
"Then say it," he replied. "Because right now, yer walking like someone who doesn't."
Xzar peered past me, eyes bright. "Oh, I do hope this is a secret."
"It's not," I said.
It was.
Montaron's gaze flicked to the treeline, then back to me. "Pick a line," he said. "We move together, or we don't."
"I'm not wandering," I insisted. "Just looking."
"At what?" Imoen asked.
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
"Nothing important," I said finally.
That did not help.
Montaron's jaw tightened. "If ye're scouting, say so."
"I'm not."
"Then stop acting like it."
Xzar smiled. "Sometimes people look for things they don't yet realize they need."
Montaron shot him a look. "Sometimes people get others killed."
Silence stretched.
I felt it then—not fear, not yet—but pressure. The weight of three sets of expectations pressing in from different directions.
I waved a hand, trying to sound confident. "It's fine. Just give me a minute."
Montaron didn't move.
"Ye've got ten seconds," he said. "Then we walk."
That was fair. Reasonable. Generous, even.
I nodded and stepped closer to the nearest tree, crouching slightly, eyes scanning the ground where roots broke through soil.
Nothing.
Nine seconds.
I shifted to the next tree.
Eight.
I could feel them behind me now—not watching the forest, but watching me.
Seven.
The world narrowed again. Bark texture. Shadow depth. The faint line where dirt met grass.
Six.
I told myself this was efficient. Controlled. Smart.
Five.
And somewhere in that counting, I failed to notice how quiet everything else had become.
There.
I almost missed it.
The root was thicker than the others, knotted and twisted where it broke through the soil at an awkward angle. The dirt around it was darker, pressed down as if something had once been tucked there and forgotten. Not obvious. Not hidden well enough to be clever. Just… neglected.
My heart kicked.
I knelt fully now, fingers brushing aside loose soil with care that bordered on reverence. The world narrowed to texture and motion—dirt under nails, the scrape of stone against root, the faint resistance of something solid where there shouldn't have been.
Xzar inhaled sharply behind me.
"Oh," he said softly. "You did find something."
I ignored him.
A glint caught the light as I cleared the last of the dirt away.
Small. Faceted. Real.
The diamond sat in my palm, unassuming and perfect, like it had been waiting patiently for someone who remembered it existed. No fanfare. No music. Just the quiet confirmation that this, at least, had not changed.
Relief washed through me, immediate and disproportionate.
Gold meant gear. Gear meant margin. Margin meant I didn't have to rely on plans resolving themselves through violence and chance.
I closed my fingers around it.
Imoen let out a small, surprised laugh. "Oh! You were looking for that?"
"Interesting," Xzar murmured. "Hidden wealth. Buried just beneath the surface. How symbolic."
Montaron didn't comment.
I glanced back at him, ready to explain—briefly, carefully—but he wasn't looking at me.
His attention was fixed past me, deeper into the trees.
That should have been the moment I looked too.
Instead, I slipped the diamond away, already calculating what it might buy. A better weapon. Armor. Something that meant I wouldn't have to stand behind people I didn't trust and hope they stayed standing.
"Alright," I said, standing. "We can go."
Montaron didn't move.
"Don't," he said quietly.
I frowned. "Don't what?"
"Turn around fast."
The forest shifted.
Not dramatically. Not with sound or fury. Just a subtle movement where nothing had been moving before. A shape resolving itself out of stillness.
Black fur. Broad shoulders. Slow, heavy steps that carried no urgency at all.
The bear stood at the edge of the clearing, exactly where it hadn't been a moment ago.
Watching.
Neutral.
Patient.
My grip tightened reflexively around the pouch at my belt.
I had found the diamond.
And somehow, in the moment it mattered most, I had forgotten the one thing on this map that could still kill me.