The road to Werrick Hollow should have been busy this time of year. Trade wagons from the western outposts usually trundled along in slow processions - clinking harness buckles, the rhythmic creak of wood, and the lowing of draft beasts. But now the path was silent, the wind dragging cold fingers through the pines.

  Lieutenant Marek dismounted, boots sinking into the damp verge. "No tracks past this point," he muttered, crouching low. The wet soil, softened by spring thaw, should have held the clear imprint of wheel ruts and hooves. Instead, the ground lay oddly smooth, scattered only with pine needles and shallow puddles reflecting the grey sky.

  A half?dozen fighters fanned out, crossbows ready. Three were from Sinclair's so?called mercenary band - too skilled for the story they'd given, but Marek wasn't fool enough to turn away trained blades. The others were border watch regulars, local hires who knew these trails like old scars. Even they looked uneasy.

  "Caravan left Oakrun four days ago," said Therra, a broad?shouldered tracker with a bow slung over her back. "Twenty?two crates - grain, dried meat, spare weapon heads, salt blocks. Should've made Werrick Hollow in three days. They never arrived."

  "Bandits?" Marek asked.

  Therra shook her head. "Bandits leave signs. Fires. Camps. Scattered goods when they panic. This - " She gestured at the empty road. " - is like they never came through at all."

  The wind shifted. Damp earth, pine sap… and something faintly metallic. Marek's jaw tightened.

  They advanced slowly, scanning the shadows on either side. The forest pressed close - towering evergreens, thick underbrush, branches dense enough to blur the daylight.

  Half an hour in, they found the first sign.

  "Here," called Derren, one of Sinclair's men. He knelt beside a faint depression in the mud. "Wagon wheel. Eastbound. But the weight's wrong. Too light."

  Marek frowned. A loaded Oakrun wagon would leave deep tracks, especially in thaw?soft ground.

  They followed the shallow rut for twenty paces - until it stopped. Not faded. Stopped. As though the wagon had simply lifted off the ground.

  Further ahead, Therra crouched beside a tree trunk. "Blood," she said.

  A dark smear streaked the bark. More droplets speckled the roots, leading into the forest.

  "Animal?" Marek asked.

  Therra inhaled carefully. Then shook her head. "Smells wrong."

  They followed.

  The forest grew silent. No birds. No insects. No distant marsh calls. Just the hush of needles shifting in the wind.

  They found the first carcass half a mile in.

  A pack?auroch - what remained of one. The rear half gone entirely, the front collapsed on its side. Ribs jutted like shattered timbers, the flesh torn in broad, uneven swaths. The exposed organs were shriveled, not from rot, but drained.

  Marek felt his stomach twist. "What could do this?"

  "Not bear," Derren muttered. "And no wolf pack takes down an auroch without tracks."

  Therra’s voice was quiet. "And it didn't eat the meat. Just emptied it."

  They pressed on.

  More remains. A shattered crate of grain. Pottery shards once filled with oil. Then - the wagons.

  One overturned entirely, axle splintered. The other looked as though something had bitten a clean, massive chunk out of its bed. Deep gouges lined the wood - bite?marks.

  Crates lay scattered. Every one empty.

  "What kind of animal steals iron?" Derren asked.

  Therra didn’t answer. She was staring at the ground.

  A track.

  Nearly the length of Marek's arm. Three talon marks extending from a central pad. Depressed deep into the soil - enormous weight behind it.

  Another print lay farther on, angled eastward.

  Toward Werrick Hollow.

  "You ever seen anything like this?" Marek asked.

  Therra’s face was pale. "Once. When I was a girl. My village lost livestock. My father told me never to follow tracks like these. Said they belonged to something that came down from the high peaks when the winters were lean."

  Stolen story; please report.

  "Did they ever find it?"

  "No. By spring, it was gone."

  Marek exhaled slowly. "We're pulling back. This isn't a patrol matter. We send a full report - maps, track casts. And until command responds, no one travels this road without armed escort."

  Therra nodded grimly.

  They worked quickly - plaster casts, measurements, flagged markers - and retreated to the road.

  As they mounted to ride back, Marek cast one last look toward the dark treeline.

  The silence felt as if it were watching.

  None of them saw the fourth print concealed in the moss between two roots - smaller than the others.

  Fresher.

  And pointing west.

  _________________________________________________________________________

  Ren had been halfway through portioning dried meat into smaller travel packs when the knock came - not a polite tap, but the firm thunk-thunk of someone who expected you to answer. He glanced up, knife poised over the last strip of spiced jerky.

  The door swung open before he could reply.

  "Get your boots," Sinclair said, stepping inside without hesitation. His tone was casual in the way storms were quiet before breaking.

  Ren set the knife down and dusted his hands. "That’s not suspicious at all. What's going on?"

  "Patrol spotted signs of the missing caravans. We're going to look." Sinclair's gaze flicked toward the ration packs. "Bring those."

  Ren blinked. "And this involves me because - ?"

  "You're still two levels from evolution, and this might give you the last push. Also - " Sinclair paused at the doorframe, his expression tightening. " - the description wasn't something I liked. You should see it for yourself."

  Ren sighed and pulled on his boots. "See, opening with that would've saved us both time."

  The outpost's main hall was loud when they entered. Tables had been cleared to make space around a large canvas map pinned to a board. Guards, mercenaries, and the outpost captain - a broad, grey-haired woman - stood in a tight half-ring.

  "No bodies. No blood," the captain said, hands braced on the table. "Tracks were difficult to measure, but the ones we could confirm were - " she spread her hands wide, " - massive. Claw marks deep enough to crack stone."

  One scout - mud and pale spores still clinging to him - stood rigid, jaw clenched.

  "Where?" Sinclair asked.

  The scout pointed to a fork in the trade road. "Eastern river trail. Half a day. The road was normal until the bend, then - " he gestured helplessly, " - it was like the ground changed. Silence. Colors wrong. We didn't stay longer than necessary."

  Ren leaned forward. "Could just be something from deep territory. A big predator."

  The captain shook her head. "Predators don't strip metal from wagon frames. Iron bands, nails, fittings - all gone. Barrels left to rot."

  Ren stilled. "Why take metal and not food?"

  Sinclair's eyes met his. "Something that doesn't need the food."

  They left soon after - Sinclair, Ren, and a twelve-person detachment. The river road turned damp and humid as the morning wore on. A faint, earthy rot tainted the breeze.

  Ren smelled the shift before he saw it.

  The ground faded from green to pale-blue mats of spongy growth. Bulbous mushrooms clustered along the trail, some pulsing faintly, as though breathing.

  A toppled wagon wheel sat half-submerged in the fungus. Its wooden rim was bare.

  "Iron's gone," a scout confirmed quietly.

  Ren crouched but didn’t touch. The mana here moved sluggishly, like syrup under heat. Wrong.

  "Feel that?" he murmured.

  Sinclair nodded, scanning the tree line. "Keep moving. Main site’s ahead."

  The caravan remains were scattered across a shallow dip. Wagons overturned. Harnesses snapped. The pack beasts' armor fittings were gone, but the leather straps lay intact.

  Massive gouges raked the earth - deep enough to show fractured stone.

  Between them, the pale-blue fungus grew thick, forming rounded mounds. One shivered when a guard nudged it.

  Ren grimaced. "Maybe don't antagonize the possibly-living landscape. Just a thought."

  Sketches began. Measurements. Quiet tension.

  Sinclair motioned for Ren to follow to the clearing beyond the wrecks.

  A perfect circle.

  Bare ground. A thin spiral at its center - darker soil, twisting inward. Beneath Ren’s feet, a faint pulse vibrated like a heartbeat.

  He stepped forward.

  The air shimmered.

  Vision.

  The pale fungus bled into bone-white tendrils, stretching across endless dark. The sky fractured into hanging shards of light.

  A jagged black coastline. Waves pulling away from shore - revealing shapes beneath, vast and slow.

  A spire of obsidian rose from the sea, threaded with veins of golden light - familiar, but twisted.

  At its base, five symbols burned.

  One flickered.

  A voice pressed into his mind:

  "The second sleeps where the tide forgets to turn."

  Light split the darkness - and the world snapped back.

  Ren staggered, breath sharp.

  Sinclair knelt beside him. "What happened?"

  Ren swallowed. "A coastline. A black spire. Symbols. One fading. And a line - 'where the tide forgets to turn.'"

  Sinclair exhaled slowly. "That's not coincidence. That's seal-making language."

  Ren nodded. "Next one's near the ocean."

  Sinclair grimaced. "Which only narrows it down to half the damn continent. But it's something."

  The scouts finished their sketches, and the group made their way back toward the outpost. Ren kept glancing over his shoulder at the fungal clearing, half-expecting the spiral to reappear.

  The vision clung to him like damp cloth - the smell of the saltless sea, the way the spire’s golden veins had pulsed in rhythm with his own threads.

  Something about that connection gnawed at him.

  By the time they reached the bend in the trail where normal grass resumed, Ren knew one thing for certain - the missing caravans were the least of their problems.