The Forest of Echoes had a strange habit of making you feel like you were never alone, even when you were. Every whisper of the leaves, every creak of the branches overhead—it all echoed back like the woods were listening.
And maybe, they were.
I walked alongside the trail Mira and Julien had gone down earlier, keeping a respectable distance. The Grimoire of Patterns buzzed faintly in my mind, but no new patterns were surfacing. Just static. Noise. Uncertainty.
Typical.
I glanced behind me. Felix was crouched near a patch of glowing mushrooms, eyes wide.
"What did I say about strange flora?" I asked.
"That they're probably poisonous and might explode," he said.
"And?"
"…I should not lick them?"
"Correct. And yet here you are, practically breathing them in."
"I was curious!"
I sighed and pulled him back by the collar before he turned into a cautionary tale. "Congratulations. You're now demoted to Mushroom Decoy. Go stand ten feet behind me and don't touch anything glowing."
