An hour after they finished harvesting the valuable parts from their kill, the hunters discovered an elevated bluff that offered a prime view of the wetlands below. Since it was a defensible location where nothing could ambush the crew, they stopped to eat lunch while surveying the surrounding terrain.

  Edge took out his spyglass while devouring one of Violet’s sandwiches. He was eager to discover what was living in the next zone before Team Arrow entered it sometime within the next few days. Now that he was above the canopy, he could tell that the swamp was even more inhospitable than he’d thought.

  Narrow fingers of dry land crisscrossed the surface of the marshlands, forming a pattern that reminded him of the roots of a titanic tree. The center of each land bridge was covered in impenetrable vegetation, and if the hunters tried walking along the sides, they would be within reach of the monsters lurking below.

  If we fall into the water, we’ll be easy meat for anything living down there. We need to talk to Gram and have specialized equipment crafted before we try crossing the zone. There were a few larger islands that looked more hospitable, but they were too far away for Edge to make out the details from here.

  It came as no surprise that most of the swamp’s inhabitants were adapted to the wet terrain. The crew recorded their observations, cataloging a carnivorous procession of monstrous turtles, alligators, and fish. They watched on with interest when a group of monsters converged upon one of the largest land bridges, marking the beginning of a brutal free for all that only one creature walked away from.

  Judging by their behavior, whatever corrupted resource the swamp held was located below the waterline. The hunters discovered evidence that more aquatic battles were occurring across the zone while they finished their meal—bubbles and blood rising to the surface in several distinct locations.

  After spending a few minutes updating their map, Snake judged that there was only enough room for one more zone on the far side of the swamp, which meant that Team Arrow had officially arrived at the midpoint of the dungeon. After surveying the path they planned to follow, the crew descended the rise and continued exploring the jungle.

  They spotted a few monsters in the distance, but nothing they wanted to tackle without gathering more information first. Their caution wound up being well-founded. Only a few minutes later, a pack of feathered serpents came soaring into view. Tessa didn’t like the look of the flying reptiles, and the crew took cover within the foliage until the monsters passed overhead.

  For his part, Edge was happy to avoid them. He had already had his fill of flying enemies dealing with the mosquitoes and had no desire whatsoever to battle airborne opponents that were certain to be armed with venomous bites.

  Late in the afternoon, the hunters stopped to harvest a patch of healing herbs growing along the water’s edge, after Tessa made sure that nothing was lurking below. They decided to explore for another two hours before heading back the way they had come.

  It had already been an extremely productive day. The crew had earned a huge chunk of experience, gathered valuable resources, and surveyed a wide swath of both the jungle and the swamp.

  Not long after, they ran into their first major obstacle. There was a river running across the dungeon that didn’t extend into the biome beyond the walls. Edge wasn’t sure how that was possible, although he supposed that it could continue below ground past that point.

  The river emerged from the thickest portion of the maze and meandered across the jungle before running into the swamp. In this region, the water ran broad, fast, and deep. There wasn’t an obvious way to cross it, although it seemed likely that they could come out on the other side if they took a different route through the maze.

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  By this point, Fox judged that they had scouted a third of the border running between the zones. Since they didn’t have appropriate gear to cross to the other side, she decided that they had gone far enough for one day. They would return to the entrance to the maze, kill any monsters in the area, then head out when their shift was up.

  It was a reasonable plan, but it wasn’t how events were fated to play out.

  They were following the border of the swamp back toward the dungeon’s wall when the crew ran into something unexpected. It wasn’t a monster or a trap, but danger of another sort. “Is that mist?” Mel pointed into the distance.

  Sure enough, there was a bank of fog flowing in from the swamp, fuzzing their view of the jungle ahead. While it wasn’t a problem right now, the mist was growing thicker by the heartbeat. Even more concerning, Tessa reported that the haze was interfering with her sensory skills.

  “Shit,” Fox said. “It’s an environmental hazard. We need to get back to the maze before it catches us, then hunker down until we have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

  The crew started running toward the dungeon’s wall, forsaking stealth in favor of speed. They sprinted across the jungle, retracing their steps in only a fraction of the time. They pushed themselves hard, but it wasn’t good enough. No matter how quickly they ran, the mist flowed faster still.

  Well before Team Arrow reached the entrance to the maze, the fog overtook them. At first, it only came up to their ankles—a minor inconvenience given their considerable Perception. But the haze kept rising by the footfall, roiling and congealing until Edge could only see a few feet in front of his face.

  Penetrate Foliage couldn’t help with this type of obstruction, and Tessa was having trouble too, since there was some manner of magic woven into the dense vapor. It distorted the feedback from her powers to the point where they were barely better than her eyes alone.

  The crew had no choice other than to navigate the deadly dungeon with severely-restricted vision. To make matters worse, their magitech devices were affected by the environmental hazard, which made getting an exact heading or determining their precise location impossible.

  “We need to find the wall and follow it,” Snake said. “It’s our only reliable means of navigating right now. If we can’t reach the dungeon’s entrance before sunset, we’re going to have to spend the night in here.”

  “You can bet your last Credit that there are monsters who specialize in fighting in the mist,” Lilly added. “I rather doubt we’ll enjoy meeting them without a plan and proper preparation. We need to get out of here while we still can. Once we’re back at base camp, Gram and the faction leaders should be able to devise a solution. Let’s pick up the pace before it gets even worse.”

  With that, the hunters began sprinting for all they were worth. Edge followed the crew’s stage-two members, trusting their superior attributes to pick a path through the mist that was nearly impenetrable to his gaze.

  Every time he saw a shadow looming in the murk, he thought something was about to leap out and attack them, before the mists parted to reveal another boulder or bush.

  Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t find the towering bamboo wall that ran along the perimeter of the Savage Garden. The fog was already too thick. To make matters worse, twilight was fast approaching, and the silvery fog soon darkened to charcoal gray.

  Just when Edge thought that they would be forced to choose between finding somewhere to hide and navigating the dungeon in the dark, the mist parted.

  It wasn’t that the fog had dissipated. Instead, they had found an area that it couldn’t enter for some reason. Roiling tendrils of vapor surrounded him on all sides, but while standing within this bubble of clear air, he could see about a hundred feet in every direction.

  They were still in the jungle and had lost track of the entrance to the maze, but at least they hadn’t got turned around and wandered into the swamp. Navigating the wet terrain on top of everything else would have been a nightmare. Dealing with their present predicament was bad enough.

  “There’s always a way to survive a dungeon’s environmental hazards,” Fox explained—the first time that Edge had heard notes of worry creep into the shadowkiller’s voice. “In this case, it seems that there are places where the mist can’t go. We should stop long enough to catch our breath, do our best to regain our bearings, then decide whether we want to wait it out or keep looking for the exit.”

  Edge gripped his naginata for comfort while watching the swirling haze. The crew was safe for the moment and could see well enough to fight at full strength, but he had an ominous feeling as he gazed into the writhing gloom. A dark foreboding that before things got better, they were going to get a whole lot worse.