Page 48 of Alien Hunter's Prize

"It's directly on our path eastward," Jen added, finally looking at me, concern clouding her eyes. "We can try to go around, but it would add at least a day through rougher terrain."

Nirako's preference for avoidance was clear in his stance. Aerie caution dictated steering clear of unexplained anomalies. But Jen's senses had proven reliable, life-savingly so.

And if this was a consequence of our actions, a ripple effect from stabilizing the Echoing Caves, ignoring it felt irresponsible. It could be a sign of a larger, lingering imbalance, or perhapsoffer clues about how the planet's energy network truly functioned.

"We investigate," I decided, meeting Nirako's surprised gaze firmly. "Cautiously. Jen, guide us. Keep us clear of the strongest energy pulses. Nirako, watch for physical instability near the ghostwoods. We approach, assess the source, and withdraw. We take no unnecessary risks."

Nirako hesitated, clearly disagreeing with deviating towards a known hazard based on the human's strange senses, but his respect, hard-won in the Pass and the Depths, held. He gave a stiff nod. "As you command."

Jen squeezed my hand briefly, a silent acknowledgement of the decision, of the trust I placed in her perception. I sensed her apprehension mix with that relentless spark of curiosity that drove her to understand the world around her.

We finished our rations quickly and began the descent into the valley, leaving the peaceful harmony of the high ridge behind. We headed towards the localized static, the strange energy echo emanating from the ghostwood grove, a stark reminder that even with the primary source silenced, the ancient wounds of this world, and the consequences of tampering with forces not fully understood, might still linger in unexpected places.

JEN

The path down into the valley was steeper than it had appeared from the ridge. We wound through dense stands of unfamiliar pines that crowded close, their needles brushing against my arms. The air grew thicker, warmer, losing the sharp bite of the high peaks, replaced by the scent of damp earth, decaying vegetation, and something else.

A faint, sharp tang, not quite ozone like the ruins, but something mineral, metallic, that grew stronger as we approached the western edge of the valley.

I walked beside Iros, Nirako just ahead of us now, his long strides navigating the uneven terrain with ease. The easy contentment we'd felt on the ridge had evaporated, replaced by a focused alertness, a shared tension that hummed between us.

My hand felt empty now, the easy intimacy of holding his set aside for the caution this new anomaly demanded.

My senses were fully extended, filtering the normal sounds of the forest—the rustle of unseen creatures in the undergrowth, the chirping calls of alien birds, the sigh of wind through the canopy—searching for the disturbance I'd detected.

The high-frequency whine persisted, a faint but insistent needle beneath the richer tapestry of natural sound, scraping against my awareness, making the markings at my temples itch.

And the energy patterns... they remained distinctly wrong. Unlike the stable, flowing blue harmony of the recovering mountains behind us, this section of the valley felt jittery, unstable.

My visualization showed the background energy as mostly calm, but overlaid with erratic bursts of sharp, staticky yellow light, concentrated towards the cluster of pale ghostwoods close to the base of the western cliff face. They flared unpredictably, like geological hiccups, briefly disrupting the natural energy flow before fading again.

"The static pulses are getting stronger," I murmured to Iros, keeping my voice low. "And the whine is louder down here."

He nodded, his golden eyes scanning the dense forest ahead, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his obsidian knife. "The air feels... thin here," he observed. "Not like altitude, but... strained. And the ground vibrates subtly, out of rhythm with the mountain's pulse."

I sensed his own lifelines reacting with unease to the unnatural energy fluctuations.

Nirako paused ahead, holding up a hand. He pointed towards the ground near the bottom of a large, gnarled tree. "Tracks," he said quietly. "Trelleth. Fresh. But moving erratically. Circling, not hunting."

I focused my hearing, visualizing the sound patterns around the tracks. I caught the faint echo of distressed chittering, the scrape of claws on rock that didn't follow a clear path.

"They sound confused," I confirmed. "Agitated. Like the energy bursts are affecting them."

Trelleth. Apex predators driven mad by energy fluctuations. A chilling echo of Rokovi's suffering. This wasn't just a geologicalanomaly; it was actively harming the local ecosystem. The need to understand, to potentially intervene, felt even more urgent now.

We continued cautiously, Nirako now moving with heightened alertness, reading the Trelleth tracks, while I focused on mapping the energy spikes and pinpointing the source of the whine.

It led us steadily towards the western edge of the valley, towards the pale, skeletal forms of the ghostwoods rising above the surrounding canopy by the base of a sheer cliff face.

As we drew closer, the wrongness intensified. The undergrowth thinned dramatically, the ground becoming strangely barren beneath the ghostwoods, covered in a fine, pale dust that puffed up with each step.

The trees themselves looked diseased. While ghostwoods were naturally pale, these were unnaturally large, their smooth, bone-white bark marked with strange, dark lesions, like weeping sores, that oozed a faint, oily residue.

The air hummed audibly now, the high-frequency whine becoming a distinct, unpleasant buzz that vibrated in my teeth. The static bursts in my visualization were more frequent, more intense, centered directly within the grove.

"This place feels sick," I whispered, rubbing my temples where the itching had become a dull ache. The energy here wasn't the overwhelming chaos of the Echoing Caves' core, but it was deeply unsettling—unstable, unhealthy, like touching something feverish and infected.

"Ghostwoods often grow where the mountain's energy is thin or disturbed," Nirako offered again, his voice hushed, his usual stoicism tinged with Aerie reverence and unease. "Where the deep earth breathes close to the surface. But this... this is different. The trees themselves suffer."

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