Bharncair, for all its curses and misfortunes, was not a city plagued by earthquakes. The city wouldn't last a minute if all the lofty and unstable buildings were to shift an inch to the side, which was why the sensation of shaking earth was quite new to Gael—to all of them—as they sprinted madly through the forest.

Shrieks of unintelligible rage echoed behind them, the halfling horde of Myrmurs pounding the ground with their footsteps.

"I'll admit it's half my fault for not making you think more before entering the forest," Cara said calmly as she ran next to Gael, "but it would have been easier to just earn the Marks to buy the aero-resonating stones outright than to come in here ourselves."

Gael shrugged. "Hey, we knew it was gonna be dangerous coming in, which is why we raised our attribute levels for situations like these."

"You two raised your levels. I didn't level shit."

"Then go find yourself a Symbiotic System or stop tagging along. I don't really need you here to begin with."

Before the two of them could start squabbling and hitting each other, Maeve sprinted past Cara and scooped her up onto her own back effortlessly. Cara immediately grinned as she slung her arms around Maeve's neck, sticking her tongue out at Gael.

"I'd marry you, Maeve," she said, rubbing Maeve's head affectionately. "You're such a diligent wife."

Maeve simply scowled. From behind them, there was a sudden flurry of whizzing sounds, and before anyone could react, arrows and javelins shot toward them. One barely missed Gael's shoulder. Another grazed his chitin-plated coat. Yelping, he gripped the brim of his top hat to keep it from falling off, and the rest of them ran faster, faster, and faster in an attempt to outrun the halfling horde.

As they ran through a clearing, though, his eyes flickered over the dense vegetation. The forest was filled with all sorts of alien, exotic fruits, and he recognized more than a few of them.

"Exorcist!" he shouted, not breaking his stride as he pointed up at a bundle of clumped-up, glowing blue fruits. "Shoot those ones down! Now!"

Maeve didn't hesitate. She whipped Mistrender forward, aimed, and let loose a sharp spray of blood that shattered the entire bundle, causing the fruits to fall in a cascade.

It was messy, but it worked.

The fruits exploded on contact with the ground, and a fog thicker than anything Gael could produce with his chemicals quickly spiralled around them in a dense, almost suffocating cloud. It was only a vision blocker, but by the time the forty Myrmurs burst into the clearing, they were frenzied, confused, and unsure of which direction to take. They screeched to a halt as they screamed at each other, looking every which way in an attempt to locate their prey.

Of course, all nine of them had already scrambled up the nearest colossal tree, and were now perched precariously on a particularly thick branch overlooking the clearing below.

Gael squinted at the horde, thumbing the handle of his cane as he did. These Myrmurs weren't exactly like the ones he'd fought before. These ones were more humanoid than ever, with torsos wrapped in clothes that looked as though they'd been sewn together from pieces of flesh, stitched and pulled tightly in all the wrong places. Their skin was a pale, sickly hue, and their faces—unlike the monstrous or beastly ones he was used to—had disturbingly human features. He'd thought this for every Myrmur he'd seen so far, but now and again, he had to admit he'd probably mistake them for actual people if he wasn't really paying attention to them.

'Halflings' was the right word to describe them.

He narrowed his eyes further, watching them screech at each other as they scattered in different directions. They were still trying to track their prey down, desperate to catch a scent, but the dense fog and the cover from the trees made them easy to avoid. He couldn't help but grin to himself, amused by how easily they were thrown off course.

Cara cut through his thoughts with a slap to the back of his head. "Were there any rumors about this many Myrmurs being in the forest this season?"

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"Well, I did hear from a few ravens yesterday that Myrmurs have been spotted even in the outskirts of the forest recently," Gael murmured in response, not taking his eyes off the horde below, "but it's always a mess of rumors coming out of this place. Nobody with half a functioning brain would take anything the ravens say seriously."

Maeve's voice was more strained. "But there's a lot of them here. They may be mere F-Rank Wretch-Classes, but each one of them are connected to a Host via their umbilical cord. If there's forty of them down here, then that means there must be at least—"

"Don't burn your brain out thinking too hard about it, Exorcist," he said with a shrug. "I would've absolutely jumped five or six of them if it meant we could get some points, but forty really is too big of a party."

They waited patiently, breaths held, as the giant horde of Myrmurs slowly dispersed beneath them. Eight of the halflings weren't going anywhere, though. They may be confused and disoriented from the fog, but their intuition was on point: their prey had yet to leave the clearing, so if they just stood around long enough, they'd get their early lunch eventually.

To that, Gael gestured subtly at Maeve, Fergal, and the five goons to prepare themselves. Each of them nodded, understanding the silent command. They didn't have to say shit. The plan was simple: get in, take the eight out, and get out.

"On three," Gael murmured. He raised one finger, two fingers, three fingers—and in one fluid motion, they all dropped from their branch.

Gael unsheathed his bladed cane as he landed on his target. The halfling Myrmur beneath him barely had time to react before his blade pierced its throat, black blood spraying to the ground. It immediately crumpled beneath him, as did the other seven around him. Maeve's Mistrender stabbed right through her Myrmur's head. Fergal's six arms lashed into his like a spider rappelling down from its web, while his five goons struck with their respective scrap weapons—a spear, an axe, a hammer, a blade, and twin daggers—cutting down all of their respective targets with well-choreographed fluidity.

Of course, the Myrmurs jerked violently immediately afterwards, 'slain' as they were, and his eyes widened as their cords yanked them off the ground and pulled them away. It was almost like they were being reeled in by someone at the end of their cords, and just like that, their broken forms vanished into the mist.

It wasn't like cutting the umbilical cords would kill them, anyways—and Gael didn't want to risk killing the Host at the end of the cords to begin with—but he'd wanted to know if it was possible to get points from a Myrmur carcass abandoned by its heart. Evidently, they were well-prepared for that, and had automatic reeling mechanisms to prevent their main bodies from being butchered while they were still alive.

"... Alright," he said cheerily, clapping his hands together as he faced the rest of his companions. Cara was still climbing down the tree carefully. "We'd be dumb to not ignore the Myrmurs for a bit. We find our stones and herbs first, and then we can decide what to do about—"

Just then, a rustling came from nearby. All of them tensed. Gael's eyes narrowed, scanning the edges of the misty clearing. The others were quick to react, weapons at the ready, their instincts on high alert.

Then, from a small brush they were all staring at, a figure stumbled awkwardly out.

A boy.

He was small. Too small, in fact. His form was eerily similar to the halfling Myrmurs they'd just dispatched. His clothes were… strange as well. They were tattered, tribal wear that'd seem completely out of place if he were to be taken out into Blightmarch, and the wooden, featureless mask that covered his whole face certainly wouldn't function as a gas mask, but that necklace of glowing green stone shards that hung around his neck—it instantly caught Gael's eye, if not only because it was made entirely out of what he was looking for.

The halfling boy stared up at them, hands folded behind his back, and in a broken, disjointed tongue, asked:

"Doctor?"

Everyone blinked.

The boy's broken tongue made him almost impossible to understand. His words were a mess of garbled syllables, but the message was there: he wanted to know if there was a doctor amongst them.

Cara leaned in, whispering quietly enough that the boy wouldn't hear. "He must be a native of the forest. A 'Petalborn'."

Before anyone could respond, the boy took a few eager steps forward and grabbed Maeve's sleeve. He tugged at it insistently, his voice repeating, "Follow, follow," as if it were a chant.

Gael's gaze sharpened. He reached out and grabbed the boy by the shoulders. The sudden contact made the boy freeze in place—after all, his grin was almost predatory, a spark of mischief dancing in his eyes.

"Where'd you get that necklace, kid?" he asked. "Where are the stones?"

The boy tilted his head, completely confused, as if the question didn't quite register. Gael sighed and mimed the necklace, pointing at it and then at the boy, asking with exaggerated gestures, "If we follow you, do we get more of these glowing green stones?"

The boy blinked a few more times, then nodded eagerly.

"Follow, follow," he repeated, his voice almost frantic now. Without further hesitation, he turned and sprinted into the forest, his legs moving with surprising speed. "Me, Liorin! Follow, follow!"

All of them exchanged brief glances before darting off after him. For his part, Gael didn't trust 'Liorin'—not one bit—but if he was a native of the forest and that could lead them to the stones, then he was worth following, at the very least.

Cara called out as they ran, her voice carrying through the mist, "And where are we going?"

Liorin didn't look back. Instead, his voice floated over his shoulder, clear in the silence of the forest: "Brain Destroyer!"

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