Raif, Naera, and Kael broke through the veil of rain as the clearing came back into view. The storm had worsened, mist becoming a curtain of water that blurred the edges of the world. Their steps slowed not from exhaustion, but from instinct. The trees behind them had swallowed their footprints within moments, and the air ahead held the kind of silence that made the skin tighten around the shoulders.
The clearing looked still at first. No movement, no shouts, just the distant snap of wind through bark and the splatter of rain. Raif's heart thumped louder in the silence. For one second, he dared to believe the worst had passed.
Then the wind shifted, and the noise hit them.
Snarling. Screaming. Wood splintering.
The east side of the clearing roared with motion. Shapes lunged through the rain and mud, claws flashed through air, and figures dodged and ducked between broken fence lines. One of the makeshift barriers had collapsed inward, bark shards and snapped mud posts jutting like ribs. Mira was locked in a brutal grapple with a Barkwolf, her spear braced against the creature's throat, her teeth bared. Beside her, Lira darted in, driving a broken stave into the wolf's side and pulling back before it could twist.
Raif's gut clenched. He scanned wildly. Rix was crouched behind one of the half-submerged mud barriers, arm drawn back to throw something, sharp-edged bark or stone, aimed at a Veilback Mantis skittering low and fast toward Eloin's position.
Three Barkwolves now moved as one, circling tighter. One had fresh blood darkening the fur around its snout. The Mantis had taken wounds too, gashes streaking its chitin, but its limbs moved with alien sharpness. And further beyond, coiled like a lurking shadow, the Smogcoil had begun to move forward. Its tendrils hissed with faint green vapour, venting plumes of choking mist.
Raif froze mid-step.
He hadn't expected this. They'd fought hard on the west side. They thought they'd broken the worst of it. But here… the fight had never stopped.
"Naera," he breathed.
She was already moving. She adjusted her grip on her spear, eyes locked forward.
Raif's voice rang out: "With me!"
Kael was already in motion, a blur in the corner of Raif's vision, gliding low through the rising haze. They ran, mud splashing around their legs, water soaking past collars and sleeves. Naera pulled tucking her arms closer to her body, ran as rain created rivers along her body.
As they neared the wall, the scent of blood and ozone hit them. Goss stood firm on the crumpled right flank, body squared behind a damaged post. His club was stained dark, and his jaw was clenched hard enough to show the line of muscle along his neck. Beside him, Hennick swayed on his feet, scalp bloodied, a makeshift stone axe held desperately.
A Barkwolf lunged.
Raif met it head-on. He twisted at the last moment, shoulder-checking the creature mid-air. Its body skidded in the mud, claws raking trenches into the wet ground. Kael slipped past, low and fast, and struck once at the hind leg. The beast screamed, twisted, lunged, Naera met it, cutting low across the knee joint and sending it tumbling.
"Where's the rest of them?!" Goss bellowed, swinging hard and sending another wolf back.
"Here!" Raif shouted, parrying a swipe with the flat of his bracer. "We're here!"
Lira looked up for a heartbeat, sweat and rain streaking her face. "Took your sweet time."
Kael ducked under a tail sweep and rolled away, but didn't return to the fray. His head was turning, watching something else. Watching the ground.
Raif noticed it next. Kael backed out of the chaos, no panic in his movements, just precision. His eyes dropped to the ground near the firepit, then locked onto a patch of trampled mud. He knelt.
Even through the rain, the disturbance was clear: depressions too large for human feet, deeper than any wolf's step. They were wide, rounded, staggered. Not fresh, but not old either. The kind of imprint only visible for a moment before the water swallowed it.
Kael's hand pressed into the soil. His brows knit. Then he pointed. Across the clearing. Inward.
Raif followed the gesture. Toward the shelters.
He took a step closer. "Tracks? Something got through?"
Kael nodded once, sharp.
Then the sky lit with lightning, white and jagged, slicing the canopy. Thunder cracked. Rain doubled in volume, becoming a wall.
Kael's shoulders tensed. He looked down. The tracks were gone.
The prints had blurred, smeared into shapelessness. He scrambled, trying to find another patch, another clue, but the mud was churned, flattened by dozens of feet, claws, and paws.
Raif came to his side. "What is it? What did you see?"
Kael stood. Slowly. His hands signed quickly now, fingers trembling, not from fear, but urgency. A shape passing through. Slow. Deliberate. Still inside.
Raif's chest tightened, he couldn't make out everything, but still he could guess. "Inside the clearing?"
Kael nodded again, motioning in a wide arc with his arm. Then he flattened his palm and lowered it to the ground. Still here. Still moving.
Raif turned to shout for the others, but the words never left his mouth.
Behind them, across the clearing, a scream cut through the storm.
It came from the shelter where Syl lay.
A shudder passed through the ground like a heartbeat. The mud near the structure rippled. Roots groaned, shifted. The roof of the shelter bulged.
Then it burst.
Vines, thick and wet, tore through the walls of bark and cord. A single tendril whipped upward, curling around Syl's torso like a striking snake. Her body was yanked into the air, limbs flailing. She screamed, raw, panicked, awake.
Lira shouted first. "SYL!"
The Lurker had arrived.
And it hadn't come through the wall.
It had grown beneath them.
Syl's scream tore through the clearing like a blade.
Raif whipped his head around, just in time to see her flailing silhouette hoisted into the air, the vines tightening around her chest and limbs. The shelter collapsed completely, bark and root falling in soggy clumps. A sickly yellow glow pulsed beneath the surface, the telltale light of the Sporeback.
Mira sprinted forward. "She's awake! She's awake and, damn it, let me through!"
The Lurker dragged Syl upward, toward the upper canopy. Smaller vines erupted from the earth around it like searching fingers, grasping and writhing. Spores burst in soft clouds with each movement, casting the surrounding air in a greenish haze.
The stench was overpowering, wet rot, sour fungus, and something sharp, like blood and mildew stewed together in the heat.
Naera was already moving. "Raif!"
"Go!" he shouted. "You five with me, Lira, Mira, Kael!"
Lira didn't hesitate. Her eyes narrowed, jaw clenched. "About time we kill that thing."
Kael was already ahead, silent as shadow, eyes locked on the Lurker's pulsing form.
"Rix!" Raif called over his shoulder. "Hold the wall! Goss, Hennick, Eloin with you!"
Rix nodded, though his face twisted with hesitation. "Try not to die!"
They charged. The terrain shifted underfoot with every step, the earth beneath the Lurker pulsing faintly like a living organ. Vines recoiled and lashed out. One caught Raif across the chest, flinging him sideways into the mud.
Kael ducked low, slicing a thin root with one of his stone blades. Naera slammed the butt of her spear into the ground and launched forward with a cry, aiming high. Her blade hacked through one of the vine clusters gripping Syl's leg. The girl fell slightly, jerking as another vine caught her by the shoulder.
"Mira, circle it!" Raif shouted.
Mira moved around the left, keeping low and covering her mouth from the spores. She didn't hesitate, just drove her knife into a root-thick bundle near the base. "I see the core!" she yelled. "It's exposed!"
The Lurker writhed. A low vibration rolled out from the center of its body, rattling Raif's teeth. Fungal blooms burst from the sides of its hide. One split open with a hiss of spores.
Lira jabbed her stave straight into the mass and twisted hard. "It's healing!" she yelled. "Too fast!"
Raif regrouped and lunged for the core, carving at a root line wrapping around its side. Kael mirrored him, slicing fast and clean. But the Lurker was adapting. Its movements became less wild and more precise.
A thick tendril slammed into Naera's thigh. She buckled with a sharp gasp but forced herself up.
Raif shouted, "Naera, cut left! Kael, blindside it!"
Kael vanished into behind the broken shelter and reappeared on the other side. In a fluid motion, he slashed across the Lurker's anchoring root with a powerful arc. The root snapped, and the whole body twitched.
Mira reached Syl.
She sliced one vine, then another. Syl dropped a metre and was nearly caught again, but Lira barreled into the area with a furious scream, driving her stave down through a fresh vine mid-growth.
Raif and Kael met at the front. Raif drove his blade into the Lurker's core.
A screech echoed through the clearing.
The Lurker collapsed inward. Its glow dimmed. Vines flailed once more, wild, uncontrolled, and then went limp.
Syl tumbled forward. Lira caught her.
The two of them fell into the mud, coughing.
[Hostile Neutralised – Sporeback Lurker]
[Kill Type: Coordinated Strike]
[Reward: +5 KE]
The storm thickened overhead. Wind screamed through the canopy. And then, a howl.
It wasn't like the Barkwolves.
It was deeper. Longer. Piercing.
Not close, but not far enough.
Raif turned, eyes scanning the tree line.
The howl echoed again, deeper this time. It didn't sound like any Barkwolf they had fought. Not exactly. But something about it dragged at the spine, low and resonant and wrong.
"What was that?" he said quietly, more to himself than anyone nearby.
Kael was already turning his head. He crouched suddenly, eyes narrowing. Then he froze.
From the west.
A shadow burst through the mist, barreling low and fast.
The Splitjaw Stalker had returned.
Not snarling. Not howling.
Just charging.
Raif's blood ran cold. "Shield them!"
And then the stalker was there.
Bearing down on Syl, Lira, and what remained of the shelter.
No time.
No breath.
Just impact.