Blightwood Forest was a graveyard that had forgotten to lie down.
Unlike the damp, weeping gloom of its eastern cousin, the canopy here was a sickly brown, a sparse lacework of brittle branches that let the cold, unforgiving sunlight dapple the forest floor.
The air itself was thin, carrying the dry, dusty scent of decay.
This was the Southern Expanse, a territory as vast as a small kingdom and infinitely more dangerous than the fighting pits of Corvengard.
Here, death was not the greatest fear; it was merely the most common outcome.
The crunch of desiccated leaves under Thorgar's boots was the only sound for miles.
He scanned the skeletal trees, his hand never far from the hammer on his back. "Boss," he began, his voice a low rumble, "this is the first time you've brought me this far south."
Ahead, Lyra knelt, examining the fresh spoor of some large beast, her crimson hair a slash of vibrant life in the dying woods.
"You were the only one free," she replied without looking up. She rose, wiping her gloves on her trousers, a wry, challenging smirk playing on her lips. "You scared??"
Thorgar puffed out his chest. "Of course not, Boss! With you leading the charge, I'd take on a dragon."
"Don't," Lyra said, her smirk vanishing as she started walking again. Her tone became the flat, serious voice of a commander. "A dragon isn't a beast you fight, Thorgar. It's a force of nature you survive. And the first rule of survival is knowing when to run."
For three days, this had been their rhythm.
They had felled a B-rank Grave Mound Bear whose pelt, Thorgar knew, could be enchanted against fear magic.
They had also slain an Elderthorn Huntsman, a prize whose heart could be forged into a blade that inflicted unhealable wounds, and whose sinew could string a bow that would never lose its tension.
Each time, Thorgar had pleaded to harvest the bounty, and each time Lyra had refused with the same, terse reply: "We're not here for that. If it's still here on the way back, we'll take it." She had yet to explain what, exactly, they were here for.
The sparse woods gave way to a stark, stony cliff face. The path narrowed, winding upwards.
"Boss... is this Dragon's Cliff?" Thorgar asked, a new note of concern in his voice.
Lyra glanced back at him, her smile returning, sharp and menacing. Thorgar swallowed hard.
They were nearing the precipice when the world stopped.
A primordial roar tore the air, a sound so immense it vibrated in their bones and seemed to shake the very foundations of the cliff.
It was the sound of geologic rage. It was a dragon.
They rushed to the edge and peered down into the rocky basin thirty feet below.
It was a tableau of ruin.
An enraged dragon, its scales the color of cooling magma, stood defensively over a single, massive egg.
Before it, bleeding from a deep gash on his head, was the dwarf, Korbin, his axe held in a trembling, exhausted grip. The splattered remains of their two human companions were plastered against the rock walls. Huddled behind a boulder, paralyzed by terror, was the halfling, Emethriel.
"Boss… what do we do?" Thorgar whispered, his earlier bravado forgotten.
"Nothing," Lyra stated, her voice cold as the stone beneath her feet. "This is the Adventurer's Creed, Thorgar. We don't interfere in another party's hunt, even when it turns into a funeral. They chose this path. Besides," she added, her eyes clinically assessing the beast's power, "The Dawnbreakers couldn't take that thing down united, let alone just the two of us."
She turned away from the edge. "We go back now. I've charted the path. The mission is done."
"But Boss!" Thorgar protested, grabbing her arm. "The halfling! I know him! Emethriel! He's a good man, helped me track a Cinder Claw once! The dragon hasn't noticed him. We can save him!"
Lyra looked from Thorgar's desperate face back down to the doomed scene. "No," she said.
"But—"
Before he could finish, Lyra unstrapped her ration pack and dropped it to the ground. "You can't," she corrected, her voice dangerously quiet. "You're too slow. You'd get us both killed."
A faint, crimson Aura enveloped her legs. She was a blur. In one instant she was on the cliff's edge; in the next, she was a ghost on the basin floor, snatching the catatonic halfling from behind his rock.
As she launched herself back up the cliff face, the dragon finally unleashed a torrent of white-hot flame, incinerating the defiant dwarf where he stood.
Lyra landed as softly as a falling leaf, dropping the trembling halfling at Thorgar's feet. "It seems it didn't notice me," she said, her breathing barely elevated.
Emethriel was broken. He clawed at his own head, his eyes vacant with a horror that had burned out his soul. "I killed them," he mumbled, rocking back and forth. "It was my idea… I killed them…"
"We need to leave," Lyra said, her gaze fixed on the basin below. "Before it smells us." She looked down at the shattered halfling, grabbed him by the collar, and hauled him to his feet.
Her voice was a blade of pure, hard pragmatism.
"Listen to me," she commanded. "Guilt is a luxury for the living. Every adventurer in this business knows the risks. They died because they were weak, or unlucky. Not because of you."
Her grip tightened. "But right now, your guilt is a liability. If you don't pull yourself together and put us at risk, I will personally throw you back down there. Do you understand me?"
The brutal shock of her words cut through his manic episode.
He stopped mumbling and stared at her, a flicker of terrified clarity returning to his eyes.
Lyra dropped him and started walking. Thorgar followed, and after a moment's hesitation, the hollowed-out halfling stumbled after them.
On their return, they found the carcass of the Elderthorn Huntsman untouched.
With a new, silent porter to carry the extra weight, Thorgar was finally allowed to harvest the heart and sinew.
The Grave Mound Bear, however, was gone, likely dragged off by scavengers.
They loaded Emethriel with the parts, along with the pelts of a few C-rank beasts they took down on the way.
He didn't protest; he was a ghost, indebted to the woman who had saved his life by threatening to end it.
It was night by the time they reached the Guild gates, the same night Faelan's party returned from Bluemoth.
They offloaded their bounty, Lyra leaving a small share for the halfling.
Her voice was still hard. "Rest tonight. Tomorrow, I want to know why a D-rank party thought they could hunt in the Southern Expanse." Emethriel simply nodded, his face a mask of remorse, and shuffled toward his inn.
As Lyra and Thorgar pushed open the Guild doors, the familiar roar of the taproom washed over them.
Her eyes immediately found their table. Faelan, Maeve, and the twins were there, alive and in one piece.
A wide, genuine smile broke across Lyra's face, a brilliant light that chased away the shadows of the Blightwood. For the first time in days, the crushing weight of their mission was lifted
Her family was home.
The two started walking towards their teammates, who looked equally ecstatic at their return—all except for Brimor's stoic impassivity and the quiet, bookish disinterest of Aeris, who were, as always, maintaining their usual expressions.