Outside the tent, the wind stirred the grass in lazy swirls. Garron crouched beside a gnarled root, gnawing on a strip of smoked meat while keeping half an eye on the tent flap.
"You hear him?" Garron muttered, voice barely above a whisper. "Sounds young. Too damn young to be out here."
Renn sat beside him, sharpening a thin blade with steady strokes. "Mira said that boy's infected with necrosis."
Garron huffed. "Yeah. I figured she was joking—until I saw our finest healing potion working on him like cheap crap."
Renn's eyes flicked toward the tent. "No mage gear. No scroll burns. No mark of transit."
"So if he didn't cast it himself," Garron said, chewing thoughtfully, "then someone cast it for him. Or threw him through something."
Renn nodded once. "Teleportation scroll, maybe. One-use. Probably old."
"But why drop a half-dressed kid in the middle of a cursed forest? That's not transport. That's a death sentence."
They were quiet for a moment, listening to the muffled voices inside. Garron tapped his boot against a stone. "Maybe he wasn't sent here to die. Maybe he was trying to escape. Or someone was trying to send him out of danger…"
Garron grunted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he looked around. The trees were too twisted. The air too still. "You sure someone'd be crazy enough to bring a jester with them out here? Is this even part of the same forest? Feels cursed."
Renn didn't look up. He had already staked one side of the canvas into the ground and was working on the next.
"You think everything feels cursed," Renn said quietly, his voice barely above the wind.
Garron scowled, tossing the last bit of meat to the ground. "Yeah, well, maybe that's 'cause half the people we've seen out here are cursed. Or dead. Or both."
Renn finally looked at him, face unreadable. "We'll rest here. Move again at first light."
"Fine," Garron muttered. He leaned back, letting the worn edge of his axe rest across his lap. "But if one more corpse starts twitching, I'm cutting this job short."
Inside the tent, warm lamplight softened the canvas walls. Kade sat on a folded blanket, arms crossed, blanket draped over his shoulders like a makeshift cloak. Mira stood across from him, arms folded, staring him down.
"So," she said slowly, "you are not a jester."
"For the hundredth time—no." Kade tugged the drawstring of his pajama pants tighter. "Why would you even think that?"
Mira pointed a gloved finger at him. "Striped pants. Loose sleeves. Ridiculous fabric. That's either a jester's garb or the most impractical combat uniform I've ever seen."
"They're pajamas!" Kade said, exasperated.
Mira blinked. "Pah-jah-mah?"
"Yes! Sleepwear!"
She squinted at him. "You sleep in that?"
"Yeah. People do. Where I'm from. It's normal."
She turned, lifting the tent flap slightly and calling out, "Renn! Garron! He says it's called 'pah-jah-mah!' It's what they sleep in!"
Garron's voice drifted faintly back: "Is it cursed?"
"I don't think so," Mira said, then eyed Kade suspiciously. "Is it cursed?"
Kade groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "It's made of cotton."
Renn's voice: "What's cotton?"
Garron: "Probably jester wool."
Kade threw his hands up. "This is discrimination based on bedtime fashion."
Mira didn't even blink. "So. You fell from the sky. You're wearing torn pajama-jester clothes. No shoes. No gear. And you're not a jester."
Kade pointed to himself, deadpan. "Do I look like I could juggle?"
She crossed her arms. "You do look like someone who lost a fight with a laundry basket."
"They're just pajamas!" he said, tugging at the frayed sleeve. "I was gonna sleep after playing games, okay? I woke up in a place i have never seen before with my o
Pajamas and everywhere monster trying to gut me. Not exactly prime time for a wardrobe change."
Mira tilted her head. "So no gear, no scrolls, no magic tools… and no explanation."
"I have plenty of explanations. Just none that would make me sound less insane."
Outside, Garron's voice echoed faintly: "He definitely sounds like a jester."
Kade sighed and muttered, "I hate everyone in this forest."
Outside the tent, the air had grown colder, and the sun was starting to dip behind the trees, casting long shadows across the grass. Kade, still wrapped in his torn pajamas, stood awkwardly as Mira and Velra crossed their arms, her earlier skepticism replaced by a more calculated look.
"So, you're not a jester," Velra said, giving him one last critical glance. "Fine. But tell me this—if you've survived monsters, undead, and whatever else this cursed forest is throwing at you, you must know something about the dead roaming here."
Kade rubbed his face, his eyes still heavy from the strange journey he'd had. "You guys really don't let that jester thing go, huh?"
Mira didn't even flinch. "Focus."
"I've seen a few things," Kade said cautiously. "Things that don't walk like they're not really. More like... Intelligent? Or maybe not dead at all."
Garron raised an eyebrow. "Intelligent, not dead at all?"
Kade sighed. "Right. Monsters... undead..."
He paused, remembering the distorted shapes that had stalked him through the grass. He looked between them—Mira, Velra, and now Garron and Renn, who stood outside the tent flap, watching him intently.
"I've seen a few things," he said cautiously. "Some of them... don't move like normal undead. They're too coordinated. Almost like they remember how to hunt."
Garron raised an eyebrow. "Coordinated? Like animals?"
"Exactly," Kade said. "There were these... rabbits. Dead. Rotten. But fast. I saw them stalking me—like predators, not just mindless husks. I didn't even realize how close they were until i spotted one of them."
His voice dropped.
"And then there was this laugh. Like a kid's laugh. I was running from them it came from behind when I was being chased, i didn't dare to look behind leaving the ruins might have been my worse decision yet
Velra narrowed her eyes. "Wait ruin—you found ruins?"
Kade nodded slowly. "Yeah. Just stone, mostly. A broken Angel statues.broken walls . But the dead there were different. They weren't like the shamblers I saw later. One of them—bigger, slower, but not stupid—I even fought some of them. Not gonna lie, one of them nearly wrecked me. But I held out."
He swallowed hard, glancing at the dirt.
"Wasn't exactly a fair fight, but I survived."