*Date: 33,480 Second Quarter - Iron Confederacy Borders*
Demir woke stiff and restless, the taste of ash still in his mouth from the battle the night before. The others were already stirring, some packing gear, others nursing wounds. Roderic had been carried away in the night by Ardrem with horses, the burn residue across his body making it impossible for him to march. The camp smelled of iron and smoke, and though the loot pile shimmered with steel and leather under the false sun of Aethyros, Demir's eyes were elsewhere. East, toward the secluded valley.
He slung the bundle of rare ingots and scraps across his back, the weight biting into his shoulders. He adjusted his worn shield, strapped the crude E-rank sword at his hip, and straightened. This was it. He had said his goodbyes already. Time to leave.
And so he set off. For all of thirty minutes.
The crunch of boots on gravel stopped as he realized he had no bloody idea where he was going. Trees hemmed him in, their crooked branches all too familiar yet somehow completely alien. The hills folded into each other without mercy, and he couldn't tell north from south. He stood there, staring at the landscape as if it might kindly rearrange itself into a road map.
With a curse muttered to no one, Demir turned back. His proud lone departure ended with him walking back into camp before they had even finished tightening saddle straps.
The first to notice was Marven. She sat sharpening an arrowhead, and when her blue eyes flicked up to see him trudging back, mud still clinging to his boots, she snorted so loudly it drew attention.
"Back already?" she said, smirking. "Changed your mind?"
Demir's ears burned red. He waved his free hand, almost tripping over a tent rope. "No, no. Just realized... uh... I don't exactly know the road."
The camp erupted. Even grim Sin cracked a reluctant grin, and Timmy doubled over with laughter. A few of the heavy shield-men clapped each other on the shoulder, shaking their heads.
Marven whistled low. "Brave warrior, bane of elites, slayer of bears, master craftsman... doesn't know which way is east."
"I know east but the secluded valley has a different route," Demir muttered, though his lips twitched with reluctant amusement. He was humiliated, yes, but in that moment, hearing their laughter instead of screams, seeing joy instead of grief, it almost felt like a victory.
Marco finally strolled up, carrying a small bundle of bread in one hand. "Let me guess. You didn't come back for directions. You came back for these." He dug into his pocket and held out the appraisal glasses, their brass frame catching the light. "Honestly, I've got no use for them anymore. You want them?"
Demir blinked. "No. I mean, yes, but that's not why I came back. I really lost my way."
Marco chuckled and pressed the glasses into his hand anyway. "Take them. And listen. You'll want to follow the spine of the northern hills until the trees thin out. There's a dry riverbed. It curves east. Stay in it two days, then climb the ridge where the stones look like broken teeth. That'll lead you toward your dwarf valley. Brovick won't be hard to find once the smoke of his forge fills your nose."
Demir nodded, grateful. He slid the glasses into his pack, bowed once to Marco, and, ignoring the snickers and grins still chasing him, turned heel and left a second time.
This time, he didn't look back.
The land stretched out before him in rolling waves of green and gray. The artificial sun above burned bright but gave no warmth, a cruel imitation of the real thing. Demir trudged on, pack heavy, sword knocking against his thigh. His boots crunched through dry leaves and brittle soil, and with every step he tried to picture Brovick's weathered face, the dwarf's patient gruffness guiding his hammer strikes.
By noon, his shoulders ached. Sweat rolled down into his beard, stinging his eyes. He stopped only long enough to sip stale water and chew on a strip of dried meat. Loneliness weighed heavier than his pack. The noise of camp, the laughter, the bickering, even Marco's whining, was gone. The forest hummed with cicadas, whispering with unseen birds, but none of it was human.
Then he saw it.
At the edge of the ridge, standing like a silver shadow, the giant wolf. The same one from the goblin camp, the beast he had freed from saddle and chain. Its fur shimmered like frost under moonlight, its amber eyes locked on him. For a moment, Demir's heart stopped. Was it hunting him? Was this repayment for its freedom, or punishment for daring to cut it loose?
The wolf tilted its head, ears pricked, then turned and loped back into the trees, silent as fog.
Demir exhaled only when it vanished. He forced himself onward, but every rustle of leaves set his nerves on edge. More than once he glimpsed it again, always in the distance, never close enough to threaten, but never gone. Stalking? Or simply watching?
That evening, he made camp by a half-collapsed oak, its trunk hollowed by rot. He gathered sticks, lit a small fire, and gnawed the last of his rations. The forge hammer was gone, the comfort buff house gone, Brovick's voice gone. All he had was the rhythmic clang in memory, echoing like a heartbeat. He turned the rare ingots over in his hands, their strange sheen catching firelight. If he could learn them, master them, maybe next time his blade wouldn't bounce uselessly off an elite's armor.
"Next time," he whispered, staring at the flames. "I'll be ready."
But doubt gnawed. Could he? Without skill?
The forest answered only with the snap of branches.
Demir lay down on the cold ground, shield propped by his side, sword unsheathed. The false stars blinked overhead, static and artificial. He longed for the real night sky, the one that shifted, that breathed. Sleep came slow, full of twitching dreams.
Barking.
Low, guttural, close. His eyes flew open. The fire had burned to embers. Shadows moved beyond the treeline, four-legged, swift. Wolves, real ones, lean and feral, their eyes glowing red in the dim.
He sat up fast, shield raised. The growls closed in, and then a shape loomed. Not fur. Not wolf.
A goblin, creeping with spear lifted high, teeth bared in a crooked grin. It had waited for the mutated beasts to harry him, circling him like prey, before stepping in for the kill. The point of the spear glinted, only a heartbeat from driving down.
Demir's heart thundered. He barely had time to lift his blade.