Rana took out the map of the forest that he held in his breast pocket. It was drawn by the surveyors 13 years ago. There were markings that were not clear and in any case, it was incomplete and heavily lacked clarity.
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The shelter they lived in was marked as Entrance 2. Towards the south was sector H, where they had met the creatures and that is where they were heading to. A dashed line showed the path that the surveyors used to travel to reach Entrance 1 which was on the opposite side of the forest.
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The survey expedition was halted when they reached Niharika lake, which was in the dead middle of the forest. It seemed that they tried to set up some waterway transport to cross over to the other side, but they scrapped the idea and concluded that it was impossible to connect the two entrances.
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There were 3 mountain ranges within the forest. They could be seen from the air if you were to fly over the forest. Some mountains were covered in trees whereas some were simply rocky. It was incredibly difficult to scale or go through these mountains, so the survey party had indeed taken a detour around the mountain range.
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There was a path that strayed away from the main path that the survey party used. It led to an X mark. Rana previously thought that it was an alternate path that the party was trying to make use of, until he found out that they had found something there that they were searching for. And that X mark was his main destination. A place that was basically uncharted and a long way out of his authority.