Morning in the Corrupted Wood brought no birdsong—only dank mist and the inescapable stench of decay.
The campfire had long since died, leaving only a bed of ash and a few stubborn wisps of gray smoke struggling to vanish in the thick air.
Raine Morningstar jerked awake from a fitful sleep, a persistent ache thumping at his temples—and the malicious whispers from the night still lingered at the edge of his hearing.
He pushed himself upright and saw Thalia Nightwhisper already awake, leaning against a gnarled tree trunk. Her black cloak merged with the shadows; only the pale line of her jaw stood out against the gloom.
Karrion Ironforge snored thunderously as he rolled over, the thick bristles of his beard scraping away a smear of slime and moss from the rock beneath him.
"Awake?" Thalia's voice was cool, flecked with exhaustion.
Raine nodded, rubbing his temple.
He cast his gaze toward the direction they had come—a faint trail should have been there.
Now, there was nothing.
Only a tangle of corruption vines—thick, black like rolling veins—and bizarre, layered underbrush had swallowed every sign of a path.
"Where… is the trail?" Raine's voice was hoarse.
Thalia too stared ahead, her expression serene as though she had seen it coming.
"It's gone."
Karrion awoke at their words, rubbing his eyes as he sat up, yawning and revealing a handful of stout teeth.
"What's gone—my ale?" he mumbled, patting at his hip flask.
"The way we came," Raine said, pointing at the impenetrable growth.
Karrion's drowsiness vanished instantly.
He leapt up and strode to the edge, eyes wide as he regarded that twisted swath of green and black.
"Absurd!" the dwarf roared, his voice cracking through the stifling forest. "Did the trail sprout legs and run off?"
He bent and stirred aside the rotten leaves and slime, searching desperately for any sign of human—or dwarven—footprints.
His nostrils flared as his dwarven tracking instincts kicked in.
But the ground was slick with mud and heavy with rotting humus, a nauseating stench rising from it.
Stranger still, he sensed the earth beneath him was… slowly writhing.
The vines and shrubs grew at an unnatural speed, as if an unseen force drove them to obliterate any trace of trespassers.
"Damn it…" Karrion straightened, wiping cold sweat from his brow. "Something's very wrong here."
"The forest… is changing."
"It doesn't want us to find our path back—or to leave at all."
Thalia knelt beside him, her slender fingers brushing a slowly writhing black fern.
"The corruption accelerates growth and mutation here," she whispered. "The terrain shifts continuously, obeying only chaotic, unruly logic."
"Dwarven tracking methods are useless in this place."
Karrion's beard quivered in anger.
"Then what do we do? We can't just wait here to die!" he muttered, pacing. "Which way do we go?"
All around, a heavy mist blanketed the forest, visibility near zero.
The grotesque trees, each deformed in its own way, looked almost identical—no landmarks to guide the way.
An unsettling force warped perception; even the dwarf's innate sense of direction felt suppressed.
"We find one," Raine said, rising and tightening his grip on the star-shard. Its cold weight was oddly reassuring. "There must be a clue."
They reassembled their gear and began a grueling search through the mist and twisted undergrowth.
They pressed forward in as straight a line as they dared—hunting for anything that could mark their path, or at least scrape out a passable route.
The corrupted foliage was unnaturally tough—ordinary blades barely nicked its leatherlike vines.
Karrion resorted to his hefty rune-axe to force a way through. Its faintly glowing runes seemed to inflict extra harm on the tainted growth.
"Heave-ho!" the dwarf grunted with each strike. "These cursed vines are tougher than orc sinew!"
"Hey, Raine lad, isn't that blade of yours called the Starfire? If you don't use it now, when?"
Raine attempted to draw the Starfire Blade.
The blade felt leaden, its molten-vein pattern radiating a faint warmth.
But he sensed his star-blood was still too fragile—last night's backlash not yet quelled. Forcing the power of a weapon that demanded star-blood would only hasten his ruin.
"Not yet," he said, shaking his head as he sheathed the sword. "I need time to recover."
Thalia moved in the middle, her senses sharper than Raine's or Karrion's—she led them past treacherous pits disguised as solid ground and predatory blooms that spewed acid.
She paused at intervals, signaling them to detour or stand back.
Yet even she could not discern the correct course.
Time passed in oppressive silence and arduous trudging.
After who knows how long, Karrion abruptly halted, raising a hand to signal the others.
"Wait," he said, pointing to an enormous, gnarled tree a short distance ahead. "Look at that."
The ancient sentinel loomed like a bloated giant—its trunk so vast it would take a dozen men to encircle.
Its bark, a sickly gray-black, bulged with pustule-like swellings, leaking viscous, foul-smelling sap that dripped onto the soil, corroding it to charred ruin.
Beneath its sprawling roots lay the half-buried bones of a corpse—entwined tightly by thick, writhing vines.
The skeleton's form was contorted, as though seized by excruciating agony in its final moments.
The vines coiled around its limbs and torso like constricting serpents, biting deep into the bone.
Nearby lay fragments of shattered metal, stained black—yet, on closer inspection, vestiges of a star-crest were discernible.
Armor of the star-blooded!
Raine's heart sank abruptly.
He hurried forward and squatted to examine the remains.
The skull lay shattered, identity lost, but the bone structure suggested a tall human—or perhaps an elf.
"Star-blooded," Thalia said softly behind him, her voice wavering slightly. "An adventurer, long ago—or a warrior."
Karrion joined them, gently parting vines with the haft of his axe.
Beneath lay a relatively flat stretch of root.
Etched there, almost obscured by the black sap, lay blurred characters.
The lines, scratched hastily with a sharp implement, were twisted and reeked of despair.
Karrion scraped at the grime with his finger, striving to read the message.
"False… light…" he read, syllable by syllable, frowning. "And… devours…?"
"False Light… Devours…"
Those few words struck Raine's heart like an icy stiletto.
He recalled the visions the star-fragment had shown him at the auction—his sister Elyria's anguished pleas in the Fallen Star City.
That cry for help, that beacon that guided him here—could it too have been false?
An iciness crept from his soles up his spine in an instant.
"Impossible…" Raine muttered, his face chalk-white.
Thalia studied him with a complex expression.
She seemed poised to speak, but instead pressed her lips together, remaining silent.
Karrion rose and scanned the forest, tightening his grip on the axe.
"Looks like our friend here had rotten luck," he said lowly. "We'd best stay on guard—this cursed wood reeks of evil."
"Now what? We still have no clue which way to go."
Raine's eyes darted between the bones, the ominous message, and the endless wood.
An unprecedented dread and confusion gripped him.
If even his sister's vision might be a trap, what purpose did this journey serve?
All his pain and sacrifice—were they in vain?
No.
He refused to accept that.
No matter what, he must uncover the truth.
Even if the truth was so cruel it would break him altogether.
He needed a direction.
Even the vaguest beacon would suffice.
"Thalia, you said the forest's malice warps my foresight," Raine said, lifting his head, eyes glinting with a determined edge. "But now, I must try."
"Raine!" Thalia's tone flickered with urgency and objection for the first time. "You're in no shape for this! Forcing your power will double the backlash—you could…"
"I have no choice!" Raine cut her off, voice trembling yet firm. "We can't flounder here like headless flies! I need to see the way!"
Ignoring her protests, he closed his eyes and clutched the star-shard at his chest.
The cold stone trembled again, this time with wilder, more chaotic energy.
He forcibly summoned his last star-blood reserves, striving to pierce both the forest's malice and his own weakness, to glimpse through the veil of the future.
Boom!
An invisible maul slammed into the depths of his consciousness.
Countless jumbled, shattered visions flooded his mind like a tidal wave.
Twisted silhouettes, oozing black blood, deformed creatures shrieking.
Piercing cacophony—like madness itself—assaulted him, threatening to tear his soul asunder.
Shadows proliferated in his vision, devouring every scrap of light.
He glimpsed the shattered Fallen Star City, floating in a void of pure darkness—a vast, rotting wound in the sky.
He thought he saw a vague silhouette atop the city's highest spire, encircled by suffocating darkness.
But the figure's face remained hidden in mist.
Voices overlapped in cacophony—cries, curses, maddened laughter, and a cold metallic whisper echoing, "Nothingness… Evermore…"
This was no foresight!
This was chaos—madness! Noise from the abyss itself!
The forest's corruption—or some deeper malevolence—warped his gift, turning foresight into a tormenting mind-rape.
"Aaah—!"
Raine uttered a tortured cry as he flew open his eyes.
He saw not the corrupted forest, but complete, impenetrable blackness.
He could see nothing.
Severe pain washed over his mind like a tsunami—countless blazing needles felt as though they pierced every thought.
He staggered back, knees buckling as he sank to the ground, hands pressing fiercely against his eyes.
"Raine!" Karrion sprang forward, catching his faltering form.
"My eyes… I can't see…" Raine's voice warped by agony, cold sweat instantly soaking through his clothes.
Thalia hurried to his side, gripping his wrist as a cool, gentle energy tried to seep into him, assessing his condition.
"Don't move!" she hissed, more strict than ever. "Your forced foresight backlash, compounded by the forest's interference… has shattered your mental defenses and shut down your optic nerves—for now."
Raine trembled with pain, his face a death-white mask, lips drained of all color.
Thalia examined him, her brow knitting in concern.
Her fingertips brushed his feverish brow, hesitation and inner conflict flickering in her gaze.
She felt his star-blood's turbulence and depletion, and the chaotic force eroding his mind.
Within her chest, the star-shard glowed warm—yearning to merge with Raine's star-blood, to quell the chaos, to mend the damage.
But she knew the price.
Each use of its power sped her own life's toll.
In this corruption-steeped wood, that drain was exponentially amplified.
She stared at Raine's agony—fingertips trembling—then slowly withdrew her hand.
Karrion watched anxiously, powerless to assist.
He scanned the darkness, axe held across his chest, guarding against a surprise attack.
"Blast it!" the dwarf muttered with frustration. "I knew pushing him to do this was a mistake! This wretched wood can warp a dwarf's sense of direction into knots! Now we're lost—and we've gained ourselves a blind man!"
His rough complaint laid bare the grim reality.
Raine was blind and weakened, and here they remained trapped in the ever-shifting, malevolent wood, with only a single faint, possibly misleading sense of direction gleaned from chaos.
The path ahead had never seemed so dark or uncertain.