As their small group approached the site of the Jormongumo settlement, the jungle grew quiet.

Too quiet.

“I’m sure this is fine,” Kaldalis grumbled. He ran his hands up and down his forearms, trying to chase away the goosebumps that formed in wake of the silence. “Just a light application of conflict resolution skills and this’ll all blow over, right?”

“Definitely not a scripted event,” Balrim added. The Talsar grimaced. “This is totally normal and not rigged against us.”

“You two are overreacting,” Myrin insisted, although her signature cavalier grin was missing. “The only way they’ll be hostile is if Dalgaard reneged on the deal. We’re with their hero of prophecy, right?” She moved to walk a little bit closer to Kaldalis. “We’ll be fine as long as they see him first.”

Instead of moving right for the quest objective, Kaldalis thought it would be safer to confront the Jormongumo directly. If the objective landed them on unwelcome territory - sacred ground, a community garden, or whatever - it would be better for all their health to ask permission first before just blundering in.

He expected sharp spears and angry glares.

But what he got was vastly different.

The town was empty.

There were no guards on the gates. No sentries on the walls.

The jungle was pregnant with the almost harrowing lack of chatter or day-to-day sounds he heard the last time he was here. No hoes split the ground for farming, no water splashes in wash buckets, and no fire crackled under the day’s meal.

As Kaldalis continued anxiously onwards, there was no sign of anyone else, either. There was no one in the streets. The gardens he’d seen the last time he was here were untended, the plants there - little leafy shoots that implied familiar root vegetables underground - were wilting.

After walking halfway down to the cell where he’d been held by Ara, with no further sign of life, he dared to peek into one of the ruined buildings.

There was nothing. Sure, there were signs that it had been lived-in, which alleviated his concern that he was simply in the wrong place. The stone buildings were clean, and free of the debris that should have littered the ruins.

But there were no people. No furniture. No cookware. Nothing.

“Alright, this is fine,” Kaldalis murmured.

“Maybe we should check the big place,” Myrin offered, pointing towards the direction of the largest building in the ruins.

The big hotel-like building where the Jormongumo’s magic tablets had been. It was also where they’d slain Ara once and for all.

Kaldalis stayed in front of the group as they approached the building. Goosebumps didn’t just run up his arms anymore. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on edge, and his horns ached with anxiety as well.

Even as they entered, Kaldalis knew the place was empty. Lifeless. It felt slightly incongruous, as the place hadn’t been abandoned for more than a couple of days, so it was still free of dust, debris, and the encroaching wilderness.

But it was utterly quiet.

Silent as a tomb.

The only sign of the Jormongumo that they found was when they entered the high-ceilinged ballroom. There, in the middle of the floor, Ara’s corpse had been left to rot.

“Well, that’s a good and bad sign,” Myrin said.

“Right,” Kaldalis agreed, staring at the slightly bloated body. “This doesn’t bode well for Dalgaard’s negotiation tactics.”

“But it does mean that they didn’t make a martyr out of her,” Myrin pressed. “No shrine, no memorial. Not even a hole in the ground with a stick for a marker.”

“She’s also still… juicy,” Balrim said, waving a hand in front of his nose at the faint smell of death in the air. “Flesh still being on her bones means she didn’t respawn. We’re rid of her once and for all.”

“Yeah, I’ll focus on the good news,” Kaldalis said, hooking a thumb back towards the door. “From somewhere upwind. I guess we’re just going to the quest marker and hoping that the quest text is just psyching us out.”

The trio made their way out of the large building, and picked their way through the abandoned ruins towards the quest objective. It appeared to be just outside of what had once been the town walls, but in an area where the jungle had truly invaded. The wall here was choked with thick brambles, visibly crumbling as the hardy plant’s roots and vines snaked up around and into it. The quest marker told them that the medicinal herb was somewhere in that nest of thorns.

More than that, the hair on the back of Kaldalis’s neck stood up once more.

There was something in there. Something alive. And it knew they were here.

Tentatively, Myrin started to circle around to the left, but not too far. Between the thick brush before them and the jungle behind, there was nowhere to stand that was outside of striking distance of unseen monsters in the undergrowth.

“I, uh,” Kaldalis called into the brush. “I hope we can come to a peaceful arrangement here? This doesn’t have to end in bloodshed, you know.”

Whatever was in there made no answer. It remained silent. Not even a rustle of acknowledgement.

“Well,” Kaldalis grumbled, “I tried.”

“Good news and bad news,” Myrin said, peeking around the brambles. “We don’t have to blunder through the thorns.”

“And the good news?” Balrim asked with a smirk.

“That is the good news,” Myrin said, shooting a grimace over her shoulder at him. “The bad news is that there’s a burrow entrance dug into here. So we’re walking into a spooky hole that was dug by whatever is in there.”

“Or whoever,” Kaldalis said into the brush. “I am more than willing to recognize the personhood of whoever is in there, as long as they recognize that we’re not food!”

The brambles made no response.

“Alright,” Kaldalis grumbled. “I guess we do this the hard way.”

Before leading his way into the burrow, Kaldalis took a moment to change his weapon. He wasn’t sure what stat let him shake off Ara’s venom faster than she expected, but his best guess was his focus on defensive stats.

His spear had HP on it, but his sword and shield had Resistance, which boosted his debuff affinities. It might not have any effect, but it was worth a try. There were worse fates than death, and one of them was becoming prey for a Jormongumo, under the effects of their paralytic bite.

The burrow entrance looked more like the work of an animal than a civilized being. Thorny bushes still hugged close around the opening, which was mostly dug in a diagonal down into the dirt itself. It was large enough for Myrin to walk comfortably, but Kaldalis and Balrim would have to hunch down a bit.

Even though Kaldalis knew that in darkness, videogame mechanics would let him see anyway, the pitch-black entrance was eerie and foreboding. The way the brambles arched over it made it look kind of like a big mouth made of dirt and vines.

The last thing Kaldalis wanted was imagery of entering a big spiky maw right before facing down a rogue Jormongumo. Whoever was inside, she was making no response to him. Not even to pretend to be a human to get close. The Jormongumo were monstrous enough under normal circumstances. What would one look like if she were completely feral?

Or, more importantly, what would she act like?

Despite his better judgment, Kaldalis led the way, hunching down and stepping into the darkness. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust and his darkvision to kick on.

The burrow got much bigger past the entrance. What was most alarming was how. Dead vines littered the floor, and up above he could see that the vines had been trimmed back, as if by a pair of shears. The job was rough, but it meant that the space inside was more than large enough for a transformed Jormongumo to do battle without interference from the thorny vegetation.

It meant that their steps crunched loudly over the dried vines.

“We really don’t mean any intrusion,” Kaldalis called. “We just need a medicinal herb from here, alright? Nothing sinister.”

The burrow continued deeper into the dirt, winding around towards the ruin’s wall.

There was no sign yet of the burrow’s occupant - besides the ever-present tingle of being watched.

But he did spot his objective.

Towards the back of the first area of the burrow, there was a clump of large orange flowers growing out of the bramble vine. It was just a mass of petals shaped vaguely like tubes, almost making each individual petal look like a fruit. But that had to be the herb. The thorny vines had choked everything else out of the area, and their objective marker pointing them to the bramble’s interior instead of just letting them trim some of the bullshit on the outside meant that this was the target.

“Okay,” Kaldalis said, pointing towards the flowers. “That’s the-”

As he turned his head to look back at Balrim and Myrin, he saw the dark shape moving just a quarter of a second before it struck. It was right above him, clinging to the thorny ceiling just above his head. Close enough that his horns were nearly touching it. He couldn’t parse how he had managed to overlook it.

Its weight crashed down on top of him, with its many limbs encircling him.