Ilon was leaning against the wall waiting for Maymun and Quyon near the east gate, watching the ebb and flow of people coming and going. They had split off to go and pick up some necessities for women and Ilon didn’t feel like going on another shopping journey.

They’re plan to deliver the information to the guards anonymously had been successful, but whether the warning was successful was a different matter altogether. But first they would have to find the culprits before considering whether or not they could fight them.

As he was pondering the situation he saw someone walk over and lean on the wall beside him. Ilon easily identified him as a guard, but wasn’t quite sure because his armour was a different colour than most of the others he had seen. The man was tall with a muscular physique. He had spiked blonde hair that seemed to border on gold and bright green eyes that were filled with life.

But the thing Ilon took as most notable about him was his black armour that was covered in countless battle scars. Nothing that affected the integrity of the armour, but scars of pride for survival. He had a sword by his side in a scabbard that was similarly coloured, but had obviously been meticulously cared for.

“You’ve been here a while, waiting on your girlfriends?” He asked in a clear, loud voice. He gave a thumbs up as he continued on, “Nice job kiddo, snatching two up. Let me tell you it’s tough but rewarding! Ahh, I miss my wives, I want to see them.” He spoke with yearning in his voice.

“Who are you?” Ilon’s eyes narrow at the man beside him. He made it very obvious that he knew who he was as well as Maymun and Quyon. There weren’t a lot of people who knew about them, but it wouldn’t be surprising if someone that had a decent position in the guards probably had some kind of info about them.

“The name’s Tain, it’s nice to meet you kiddo.” He said as he leaned back and offered his hand to him. Yet Ilon could tell, the man had no openings. Ilon shook his hand and felt the slightly cold metal and his skin. It was early in the morning just after first light, and the temperature had risen, meaning that he had probably been out here for a while before the sun had risen if it was still that cold.

“Ilon.” He responded in kind. “And they aren’t my girlfriends.” He quickly said before Tain had a chance to take control of the conversation. “How many wives do you have?”

“A shame, and I have three wives. Each I care for deeply.” He looked over to Ilon and stared him in the eyes. “And if someone has information on something that could potentially harm them, I would do anything to obtain it.”

Well, there goes trying to buy time for Maymun and Quyon to arrive. He wondered if they would even approach him if they saw him talking to a guard, considering what happened last time with Lysa.

“Very noble of you.” It was indeed a noble-like quality to do whatever they could to protect what they cared about, even if those things were questionable. Such as threatening young adults like him. “Family is important after all.”

“That they are, and I consider this town to be my family so I’ll be straight with you. Was it your trio that left that information in the guard station? Only a few are privy to the knowledge that one of the culprits had violet eyes.” He spoke in a voice just slightly louder than a whisper which was mostly drowned out by the loud background noise, even Ilon barely heard him.

“Why not make the information public knowledge among guards? If they see anyone with eyes like that then they could report it to their superiors.” Ilon questioned instead of giving him a direct answer.

“Because if some fool decided they would be the one to catch them, it could end in disaster. We always have to take our target's strength into consideration, and if we can’t do anything about it then we call for someone who can from the capital.” Tain responded. “So if someone had extra information that they’d care to share, it would make it a lot easier for us.”

Ilon thought for a moment. If he decided to tell them that they were indeed the ones who gave the information directly then they would be questioned about how and where they got it. Simply saying a friend told him and that the friend left probably wouldn’t be enough for them. On the other hand, not telling them would make enemies and Ilon really didn’t want that. What a dilemma I’ve gotten into.

“Unfortunately, I’m not the person to talk to for information. Go to an information broker if you want information.” Ilon really didn’t have anything else to give, but who knows whether he would accept that even if it was the truth.

“I see.” Tain said with a disappointed look. Tain looked up at the cloudy sky and Ilon noticed his hand resting on the handle of his sword. He saw that Tain’s brows furrowed a little and it looked like he was making a hard decision, one that probably had to do with him.

“But I will give you a warning.” Ilon said before he could come to a decision. He couldn’t take the chance that Tain would try and forcefully obtain more information from him, when more information didn’t exist. “Violet is a very, very dangerous colour. A little known fact is that Horror’s have violet coloured blood after all. Unfortunately, I wish I knew more about it, but I don’t.”

Ilon saw Tain take his hand off the handle of his sword as his eyes widened a little. He got up from leaning on the wall and patted Ilon on the head lightly. “Thanks Kiddo. Since you’re headed east, I’ll give you a warning as well. There have been reports of monsters acting strangely and reports about monsters with distortions on their heads.”

“I’m not a kid, I’m an adult now. Thanks for the info.” Ilon said as Tain walked in a fast pace towards what Ilon could only assume to be some sort of barracks of the east gate. It seemed like the mission of delivering the information anonymously wasn’t so anonymous after all. He could only wonder how they had found out.

As he was thinking about it he saw Maymun and Quyon coming towards him, conveniently only a minute or so after Tain had left. They were kitted out in their gear for combat which consisted of hard leather armor made from monster hide. Maymun had actually brought her weapon this time which was a staff strapped to her back., while Quyon always wore her weapon which were combat boots. Both the staff and boots were like his whip, provided to them by the Master and held great potential for strength.

“Hey Ilon, did you wait long?” Maymun said in a tone as casual as she could make it.

“Yeah I did. Did you two have fun hiding and pushing this onto me once again?” He said with the kindest, most obvious forced smile he could provide.

“W-w-what are you talking about?” She stuttered out, before realizing that it was pointless. “Sorry.” She apologized.

“Sorry Ilon, we’ve had some bad encounters with guards before.” She leaned in close to Ilon so that Maymun wouldn’t hear. “Plus she had that incident when she was younger. I’ll tell you about it later if you want to know.” She pulled away as she patted his shoulder.

“Whatever, let’s get going. We need to make decent pace if we want to get there at a decent time, who knows how long it will take to find a Horror in a forest this big.” Ilon said as he set off through the gate with Quyon and Maymun trailing behind him.

The forest of Soullight was about a half a day's walk from the town of Mazual for a regular person. However, the three of them were able to keep a much faster past than any ordinary person, thus cutting their travel time from half a day to only just a couple of hours.

The sun had almost reached its zenith as they crossed the tree line, indicating that they had now entered the Soullight forest. From the information the three of them had gathered yesterday night, the Soullight forest got its name because of a type of plant in the depths of the forest that illuminates itself in the dark if there was something with a large soul nearby. They weren’t able to find out why or how the plant did this, just that if it was uprooted then it would stop.

“So this is the Soullight forest. Remember what I told you about the monsters. Tain didn’t exactly tell me how they were acting, but it’s safe to assume that it potentially has something to do with the Horror.” Ilon said to the two of them. He knew he didn’t have to remind them in the first place, but he felt better doing it anyway.

“Don’t worry.” Maymun said as she unstrapped the staff on her back. “We’ve all faced Horrors before.”

“Maymun you’re on the right, I’ll be on the left. Ilon will cover for us if we’re attacked from either or both sides. If we’re swarmed we’ll go in a triangle formation, Maymun you’ll lead us to break out of it while Ilon and I cover your back.” Quyon instructed as she got into position.

“Got it.” Ilon said as he took out his whip and dagger. From this point forward they would have to be at full focus. When facing a Horror of unknown strength and unknown abilities, a single mistake or lapse in concentration could lead to death.

“Remember, if Maymun and I can sense the Horror but you can’t then we retreat immediately. A tier ten would be too much to handle even with the three of us.” It was possible for the Cursed to sense Horrors weaker than them, or within two tiers of them.

It was possible for the Cursed to fight a Horror one tier above their own with a pretty good chance of success, depending on it’s ability. Fighting two tiers above meant a very high chance of death, but it was still possible to buy time or escape. Three tiers meant death with no possibility of escape.

Of course, it wasn’t always as clear cut as that. Horrors came in all shapes and forms. They might encounter a Horror in the same tier as them that was a complete counter to them.

“Everyone ready?” Maymun got two nods in return. “Then let’s go.” They started to move deeper into the forest, looking out for any signs of monsters and trying to sense the Horror. Unfortunately, the range of their sense wasn’t the greatest, so it would take time and luck in order to be able to encounter the Horror in a forest as large as this one.

The forest was still vibrant and lush at this time of year. Green intertwined with a variety of colours from flowers filled their sights. They heard birds calling out and skittering of the small animals in their vicinity. Since they were near the entrance of the forest it was unlikely for them to encounter any monsters, but they could never be too careful considering the reports of strange behaviour.

As they traversed deeper and deeper in the forest, Maymun noticed something particularly unusual in their surroundings.

“There’s no marks of territory. I also haven’t seen any larger animals yet.” She voiced her concerns. They had been walking for around an hour, and not once did they see any deer, which were plentiful in the Soullight forest. In fact, she hadn’t even seen any fresh tracks of deer for that matter. “Or fresh tracks of large animals.”

It was the last part that gave them greater cause for concern. If the animals here had good instincts due to the amount of monsters in this particular forest then they might be able to avoid them, but not even seeing any tracks indicated that there weren’t any.

“Do you think it’s due to the monsters?” Ilon asked. Maymun gave it some thought, but rejected that theory.

“Probably not, there aren’t any tracks of monsters either or signs of struggle from prey.” Maymun said.

“I only see two possibilities then. The first is that it’s a flying monster or Horror strong enough to catch them before they had the chance to react, or they all headed somewhere deeper a couple of days ago at minimum.” Quyon commented.

“Let’s continue on. The only thing we can do is keep an eye out.” Ilon said as they continued trenching towards the depths of the forest. As they got closer to the center of the forest they started to notice more and more oddities. The calls of animals and birds had mostly faded, the amount of bugs that bothered them had dwindled to nearly nothing.

As they continued deeper, they came to the second threshold where the name Soullight forest really showed it’s meaning. The canopy became so thick that only the slightest bit of light on a sunny day would trickle through. Unfortunately for them, it seemed like the weather was not on their side as the sun seemed to mostly disappear from the world in front of them.

“Wow, that’s not creepy at all.” Maymun joked to try and keep the nerves down. In these parts of the forest most of the monsters had far superior dark sight, while humans could only rely on the dim lights of the plants.

“Make sure to watch your footing. If you trip in the middle of a fight you're as good as dead.” Quyon spoke in a somber tone. This could be one of the hardest fights that they would ever encounter. They couldn’t even use other light sources since the soullight plants would die and release a deadly poison. After seeing what they were dealing with, they might have to retreat if it was too much.

“Then let’s go. I have a feeling it’ll be in there.” Ilon said as he was about to set off into the darkness.

“Wait.” Quyon stopped them before they went in. She went into her pack and got out a coil of thread and quickly wrapped it around a tree, making sure it was secure. “How would we be able to find our way back? We’d get lost and die in there without this.” She attached it to her pack so that it wouldn’t occupy one of her hands.

“Oh, nice idea. We’d be screwed without you Quyon.” Ilon gave a smile of gratitude. “Now we can go.”

Ilon’s intuition proved to be true. The second they crossed the threshold he was able to sense the Horror somewhere in the distance.

“I sense it. Ilon can you?” Maymun said the moment they crossed.

“Yeah.”

“Good. At least it’s not a tier ten. We should assume tier nine then and hope for tier eight.” Quyon said. She dreaded the thought of having to fight a tier nine Horror in this bad of an environment. If it was something that utilized it, then the fight would probably be a lost cause.

The three of them continued forward. The plants within a couple of feet illuminating a dim light as they passed by. Ilon took one last look behind him towards the remnants of the sunlight fading in the distance.

A bad, eerie feeling overtook him.