Ember stayed low, arrow already free of the quiver, kicked dirt still smoking faintly over the drowned fire. Three heartbeats passed. Nothing in the marsh made a sound — not insects, not water, not even the frogs that had been humming steady all afternoon.
Then the reeds across the pool split apart, and something answered.
A low, wide shape hauled itself onto the mudbank on thick, muscular legs — no glide to it, no grace, just weight dragging weight. A second shape followed a few feet to its left. A third rose out of the shallows behind them, throat sac swelling to the size of a clenched fist before going eerily still.
[Appraisal]
Monster
Name: Mist Toad
Level: 5
Rank: Common
HP: 100%
Behavior: Territorial
Special Attack: Mist Cloud
Description: A large amphibian that dwells in marshes and riverbanks. It fiercely defends its territory, relying on concealment rather than brute force to drive off intruders.
"That’s not a background sound," Mia whispered, her staff slanting down. "Ember, don’t lose sight of me—"
Before she finished, the nearest throat sac collapsed with a wet snap, and a heavy wall of pale vapor rolled off the mud and across the water between them, swallowing the far bank whole.
Ember’s vision dissolved into grey smear almost instantly. He didn’t chase the shape he could no longer see — he tracked the wet slap of webbed feet against mud instead, drew on sound alone, and loosed.
The arrow struck something solid. A wounded croak cut short, followed by a heavy splash.
Mia swept her staff in a short, hard arc, and a burst of clean wind tore a channel through the mist, dragging it apart in ragged streamers. What was left of the pack was already retreating — two shapes vanishing back into the reeds, low croaks fading into dark water.
[Experience Gained]
Mist Toad defeated.
+15 EXP
Ember lowered his bow, blinking his vision clear. "Didn’t expect that to be the something big."
"It isn’t." Mia was still watching the treeline, staff held ready. "That’s the part that worries me."
He looked at her.
"Marsh guides have a saying," she said. "Wherever the toads sing that loud, don’t pitch a tent. The croaking’s not them fighting each other — it’s a dinner bell. They stir up everything in the shallows, and whatever’s actually hunting just lets the noise do the work and waits at the edge of it." She nudged the drowned toad with the end of her staff. "Big enough packs have even dragged down half-grown drakes, when the numbers favored them. Nobody tests that math twice if they can help it."
Ember crouched beside the carcass and worked his knife along the hide’s natural seam, freeing the ichor sac before it could rupture and go to waste in the mud. It took less than a minute — nothing like a proper field dressing, just enough to keep what was worth keeping.
[Skill Proficiency Increased]
Basic Gathering
Efficient harvesting under pressure has improved your proficiency.
+0.4%
[Item Obtained]
Toad Ichor Sac ×1
Mist-Slick Hide ×1
He wiped the blade clean and packed the materials away. "Small stuff. Wanted the practice."
Ember looked at the still water, then back the way the surviving toads had fled. "So we didn’t wander into their territory."
"We wandered into whoever eats them. Or whoever they’re scared of." Mia exhaled, some of the tension leaving her shoulders now that the mist had cleared. "Either way, I’d rather not find out standing in ankle-deep water."
They ate in silence on a dry ridge a quarter-mile back. Neither touched a fire kit. Ember scraped dried mud off his boot heel with his hunting knife while Mia sat cross-legged, running a cloth along her staff’s focus crystal. The casual banter from that morning was gone, replaced by the steady, quiet rhythm of two people listening to the dark.
"Still going?" Mia asked, watching him inspect his bowstring.
"The ruins aren’t walking away," Ember replied. "We just move slower. And stay out of the deep mud."
Mia let out a quiet huff. "Careful."
"Careful," he echoed. "Not confident."
The waxing gibbous moon hung high above the wetlands, painting the sprawling channels of Crescent Marsh in stark shades of silver and black. A cool night wind drifted through the tall reeds, bringing with it the sharp, clean scent of night-blooming lilies and damp silt.
They had pushed deeper than planned.
The main river channel had narrowed into a maze of stagnant oxbow pools, where pale blue Glowcap Mushrooms illuminated the bases of rotting trees like faint lanterns. Thousands of tiny bioluminescent insects hovered over the water, their light dancing across the mist in quiet, shifting patterns.
"Glowcaps," Ember murmured, marking the spot in his head without slowing down. "We’ll want to come back for those. Alchemists pay well for anything that only grows in the dark."
"If we come back at all tonight," Mia muttered, eyes on the water.
"It doesn’t even look like the same zone at night," Ember whispered, his bow held loosely in his left hand.
Mia nodded, her staff’s crystal dimmed to a low amber pulse so as not to attract attention. "Night spawns in the marsh have higher aggression ranges. Watch the open water."
A sudden, sharp SPLASH echoed from a pool thirty yards ahead.
Both of them dropped low instantly, Ember sliding into the shadow of a fallen log while Mia crouched among the dense reeds.
The distant toad chorus that had trailed them at a distance most of the evening had gone completely silent nearly an hour ago. Ember hadn’t liked that then. He liked it even less now, flat in the mud with nothing left to explain the quiet.
"See it?" Mia breathed.
"No silhouette," Ember whispered, eyes fixed on the moonlit dark. "Just ripples. Center of the pool — it’s moving against the current."
SPLASH.
This time it was closer — twenty feet to their right.
Ember’s grip tightened on his bow riser. His training with Garrick kicked in: When a predator moves at night, don’t look for the body. Look for what the body displaces.
"It’s not swimming on the surface," Ember warned softly. "It’s submerged, cutting through the weed beds. It’s circling us."
Mia’s hand shifted on her staff, her fingers finding the spell-focus runes by feel. "Can you appraise it?"
"Nothing yet," Ember muttered. "Appraisal needs a clean look, and all I’ve got is disturbed water. Stay sharp."
They moved forward inch by inch, their synergy seamless. Ember kept his vision locked on the dark water, his feet feeling for stable root-footing before placing his weight down. Mia stayed two paces behind his left shoulder, her staff ready to deploy defensive crowd control the second the threat materialized.
The water thirty feet ahead suddenly violently heaved.
A massive, serpentine head burst through the surface, sending a wave of black water crashing against the banks. Its scales were deep emerald, edged in silver that caught the moonlight like polished metal. Its body was thick as a barrel, stretching nearly eight meters back into the dark pool, propelled by powerful, muscular undulations. A tall, translucent fin ran down its spine, vibrating with a high-pitched hum that set Ember’s teeth on edge.
[Elite Monster Encountered]
Elite Monster Detected
Elder Ripple Serpent
Danger Level: High
[Appraisal]
Monster
Name: Elder Ripple Serpent
Level: 10
Rank: Elite
HP: 100%
Behavior: Ambush Predator
Special Attack: Water Fang / Whirlpool Coil
Description: A cunning serpent that lurks beneath calm river waters, waiting patiently for unsuspecting prey. This specimen is far older and larger than its kind, its mastery over water currents grown terrible with age. It has made these sunken ruins its den for longer than any living record.
The serpent let out a rasping, wet hiss, its pale blue eyes locking onto the two players.
"Get off the bank!" Mia shouted, grabbing Ember’s arm. "It’s pulling the water underneath us!"
The serpent dived. Where a normal creature would leave a wake, it vanished entirely, the surface of the pool flattening instantly as if frozen.
"Where is it?" Mia swung her staff, scanning the dark pool.
Ember didn’t watch the main water body. He looked at the tiny reeds lining the edge of their mudbank. The stalks were bending — not away from the wind, but inward, drawn by a sudden suction beneath the bank.
"UNDER US! MOVE!"
Ember shoved Mia backward into the dry moss just as the ground beneath their previous position exploded upward. Jaws lined with needle-like teeth snapped shut on empty air, spraying black mud and shattered roots twenty feet into the air.
Ember rolled through the muck, coming up on one knee. He drew and released in a fraction of a second.
The bowstring slapped his forearm guard, the bow groaning under full draw. The steel point hit the serpent’s flank with a sharp metallic clatter, skimming off the sloped scales like iron off anvil steel, leaving nothing but a trail of pale sparks.
"Scales are too thick for direct shots!" Ember called out, scrambling back as the serpent’s tail whipped through the air like a heavy beam.
BOOM!
The tail shattered a rot-weakened tree trunk near Ember’s head, showering him in bark and damp wood chips.
Knowing the serpent hunted by the vibrations it felt through the water, Ember snatched a heavy broadhead from his quiver and hurled it into the deep water ten yards to the creature’s left. The impact sent a sharp jolt through the current, and the serpent’s head snapped toward the disturbance — buying Mia the three heartbeats she needed.
"I’ll force it out of the water!" Mia shouted. She slammed the base of her staff into the mud, her mana flaring in a bright cyan ring around her feet. "[Frozen Mire!]"
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