The Blackwood Forest breathes with a suffocating, ancient chill. Skeletal branches interlace overhead, strangling the moonlight into thin, jagged slivers that fail to pierce the gloom. The air tastes of wet iron and rot.
Lucius
We need to move deeper. The scent of ozone from the mountain collapse will draw them here soon.
Lucius
My shadow magic is fraying at the edges, and this old man is nothing but dead weight. If he dies, my leverage over the village dies with him.
Lucius
My eyes fail me in this unnatural dark, boy. Why does the forest seem to turn its back on us?
A figure emerges from the dense thicket ahead, draped in moss-colored rags. She stops, her hand hovering over a blade etched with runes that pulse with a sickly, rhythmic glow.
Muna
You carry the stench of the void on your skin. That is a scent the Blackwood does not tolerate.
Lucius
A guardian of the wood. If I fight her, I expose myself. If I run, I lose my path.
Quest Complete
Reach the Blackwood Forest
Skill Upgrade: shadow manipulation Good→Great
+ Story Quest Added
Survive the forest guardian
“i carry haldor and merge into the shadows while she shadows strangle muna”
Critical hit for 3 damage — Muna struck back for 2 damage
Lucius lunges forward, his form dissolving into a jagged smear of ink and shadow. He hauls the dead weight of Haldor into the darkness, but his hands weave a lethal tapestry of obsidian tendrils. The shadows whip outward, coiling around Muna like constrictor snakes. They lash her body with concussive force, snapping her ribs and driving her to her knees in the damp loam.
Muna
You... foul... shadow-wretch...
Muna gasps, her breath hitching in a wet rattle as she collapses. Yet, with a final, desperate twitch of her wrist, she drives her runic blade into the patch of darkness Lucius occupies. The steel bites deep into his side, the holy edge searing his skin like white-hot iron. Lucius stumbles, blood blooming dark against his tunic, his shadow-form flickering and threatening to collapse entirely.
Lucius
She hit me through the void. If I don't silence her now, the village hounds will have a blood trail to follow for miles.
“she uses the shadows to posses muna and stab herself”
Missed — Muna struck back for 6 damage
Lucius thrusts his hands forward, attempting to weave his shadow-thread into Muna’s mind, but the forest guardian’s resistance is a wall of concentrated light. The dark tendrils shatter against her aura, leaving him exposed. Muna seizes the opening, her runic blade blurring as it carves a shallow arc through his ribs. The searing holy energy radiates outward, grounding Lucius instantly. He crumples into the dirt, his vision swimming with pinpricks of white light as the forest floor rises up to meet him.
Muna
Your darkness finds no purchase in the pure, shadow-wretch.
Lucius
My strength... it fades like smoke. I failed to protect him. I failed to stop them.
The darkness of the Blackwood swallows Lucius whole, his consciousness fracturing into the cold, silent depths of the soil.