Once I reach the front of the procession, I call out for my master.
"I am here Anetor, no need to call out so loudly," I hear from right beside me.
Struggling to control the brief shock that overtakes me, I ask him "How far are you able to see into this fog?"
"No more than ten feet still. I assume from the fact that you didn't know I was beside you, you can see less than three?"
"Ha! I can barely see even a foot in front of me. I just flew up above the fog, we are barely a quarter of the way through this forest. If it continues to grow worse as we continue into the valley, I must question whether we will make it."
"It will get worse, and we will make it. The fog will not grow any thicker and the foliage will grow no more dense, for some time at least. Then, the density of the foliage will let up, and we will walk around the fog lake that makes up the center of this valley, a lake of mud and nightmarish beasts.
"When I say that this journey will get worse, I refer to those beasts. While the unpleasantness of the environment has already reached its greatest extreme, what with the trees, bugs, fog, and mud, the danger has not yet been too extreme. No, the unpleasantness will be much replaced with danger at the center of this valley, as we enter the territory of ancient monsters."
[Huh. So, it would seem I was wrong in my assumption that the monsters of the forest were bugs. I made that assumption based on the belief that the forest would continue to grow in density, if the center of this valley is far less dense with foliage, there would certainly be room for more stereotypically dangerous monsters.]
"What type of monsters should I be on the lookout for?"
"It would be surprising if they ventured this deep into the foliage, but once things open up a bit more you may have to deal with them. The beasts in this forest are primarily bear and deer type monsters, the species vary greatly. Size, intelligence, mutations… one of the great dangers of this forest is the sheer variability of the monsters. If we were unlucky enough, it would be possible for a monster the likes of which even our general couldn't beat to appear.
"And that is only on the land. The mud lake at the very center of this valley is home to beasts capable of destroying our entire army; that is why we will be giving the lake a wide berth; some beasts within it would pose a threat to creatures as much as five hundred feet away."
"What type of beast could pose such a threat?" I ask, truly curious. While I have been reading whatever I could since learning how to, one of the biggest gaps in my knowledge is the variety of monsters within this world.
"It is unknown. The fog over the lake impeded the sight of the survivors of the attack. All that is known is that the extremely powerful mage that was grabbed off the shore by a tentacle, a transcendental-level wielder of elemental magic and even more capable in straight magicm, was never seen again."
"So powerful… Yes, we best avoid entering such a thing's territory." [If I am remembering correctly, transcendental is above even grandmaster, and only below dietylike! To be able to kill someone of such a level, the beasts occupying this valley are certainly not to be trifled with!]
I bid Lector farewell, returning to doing my scouting duty as best I can. With my vision and movement impeded, I am honestly quite ineffective in my task, but based on what Lector told me, it shouldn't really matter right now. There are unlikely to be many powerful beasts in an area so dense as this one, and any that do appear will doubtlessly be sensed by my earth sense ability.
However, even as a few more miserable hours pass, troops wading down a gentle slope of mud through an alley between rotten trees, dealing with dark, thick fog and countless bugs, no animals even as large as a squirrel appear. [Apparently even animals understand that this place is not fit for habitation. Any mammal foolish enough to wander in would be blinded by the fog and consumed alive by the vicious pests.
[Seriously, this world is so evil, so rotten, that it provides vast swaths of land on which even normal animals cannot survive. Earth would never do such a thing! Sure, the oceans, but those aren't land! I am convinced that there is no place on Earth so awful as this, so wholly unfit to share a world with normal living creatures! Though, of course, the creatures on this world are hardly normal; they are evil to the core, so evil that such an awful place matches the type of environment in which they deserve to live!]
And thus, our journey continues, as uneventful, though certainly not as fast nor as relaxed, as our passage through the dusty plains.
When the time comes for our four our rest, Lector somewhat surprises me by handing out a set of sleep resistance and endurance potions to every soldier, alongside the announcement that we will not be sleeping in this forest and will be aiming to be free of it in as short a time as possible.
The soldiers are expectedly quite happy with this announcement, and their happiness only grows after they are rejuvenated by the set of potions. While the endurance potion wasn't strictly necessary, I'm sure that it came as a welcome aid to the soldiers. That said, I do worry about what giving out all these potions will do to Lector's (and, my extension, my) reserves; but when I ask him about this, he explains that he had intended to use potions to force our way through the forest all along. Even though he hadn't expected it to be quite so unpleasant, he explains, he had known that it would be at least so bad as to make us want to spend as little time within it as possible.
After another ten hours of wading through thigh-deep mud, the trees begin to clear out around us. With the canopy made much thinner, a little light actually manages to reach us. Of course, the fog still makes actual visibility an impossibility, and the trees are still very dense by any normal forest's standard; I am beginning to wonder how there are enough nutrients down here to sustain them, but considering that everything about this geography is unnatural, I pass it off as magic of some sort.
The trees continue to thin, and the ground begins to level out beneath us. The mud also grows deeper. Once the mud is up to my waist, Lector calls out "Everyone, gather around. I know you can't see, just make your way to my voice. Calmly! There is no need for a stampede. The trees have thinned out enough that we should all be able to gather close."
For the next few minutes, all the soldiers gather near each other, utilizing their senses of hearing and touch to orient themselves. Once everyone has gathered, Lector summons a massive whirlwind of air around our group, blowing away the fog. I would ask why he didn't do it from the beginning, but judging by the whirlwind's size and density, I can only assume that even he couldn't keep it going for long. And the whirlwind isn't needlessly strong, either; even spinning at full force, it barely manages to keep the fog away.
Seeing my comrades for the first time in over a day, I am forced to admit that they don't look so good. Everyone, from the mages to the swordsmen is covered from head-to-toe in thick mud. What patches of skin aren't protected are instead bleeding and bumpy from the merciless attacks of the bugs. More than one soldier appears to have suffered significant damage to their eyes as well.
"Now, first of all, healers, do your duties," Reinhart commands. The handful of healers begin to scramble around, prioritizing mages first and then moving on to the much more injured swordsmen. Reinhart is visibly irritated by this, but he says nothing to stop it; after all, it is a given in a world that so greatly values strength, mages would be given preferential treatment, with straight magic users among them being treated as the best of the best.
While the healers finish up, Lector explains the next leg of our journey. "We are about to pass through the most dangerous area of our journey. The trees will continue to grow sparser and the mud will continue to deepen until we have entered a lake of mud inhabited by monsters far beyond our combined abilities, should we go straight forward. Instead, we will go around the edge of this lake. Be warned, there may still be dangerous monsters, prepare yourself to be attacked from the fog. Now, keep a hand on the soldier in front of you as we make our way through this place, follow me."
Saying this, Lector allows the whirlwind to disperse, again leaving us to work our way through the fog without any visibility. Considering that we are wading through very soupy mud, I quickly make use of another move - water sense, to supplement earth sense and to ensure that I feel anything that may be approaching.