The brief respite receded like a departing tide, leaving only deeper exhaustion and unease.
The malice of the Corrupted Forest showed no mercy for their brief moment of rest.
Raine forced himself to stand, every bone aching with acid pain.
He fixed his gaze on the path ahead—once a faint woodland trail, now gone.
Not empty—indeed, not empty at all.
The trees themselves seemed alive, limbs writhing, canopies swaying with teeth‑grinding friction.
Emerald vines slithered up like venomous serpents, weaving ever‑shifting walls.
Light fractured into strange, dancing shadows—shadows that writhed as if hiding countless watching eyes.
"The path… it's gone," Raine whispered, his voice betraying a trace of tremor.
He tried to orient himself, but the surroundings twisted like a kaleidoscope.
A boulder that had stood to his left a heartbeat ago now loomed to his right.
Overhead, no stars or sun pierced the dense, moving foliage.
Every sense of direction collapsed.
Karrion spat a dwarven curse and stamped his foot, feeling the earth's tremor.
"Damn it! This place… it's alive!" he snarled.
Thalia stood motionless, her face hidden beneath her hood's shadow.
She alone had sensed the change first.
Here, the forest's corrupt power had congealed and warped into a living maze—an ever‑shifting prison that devoured any sense of direction.
"A maze," Thalia said, her voice cold as winter's breath. "A trap woven by corruption."
"A trap? It's a spirit wall if ever I saw one!" Karrion jeered, hefting his rune‑hammer.
Those writhing trunks and vines could ensnare and crush at any moment.
"How do we get out?" Raine asked, throat dry.
He felt dizzy; the constantly changing scenery made it impossible to focus.
Even his starfire felt agitated, its power sputtering.
Karrion said nothing.
He closed his eyes and pressed a hand to the damp, cold earth—dwarves felt the heartbeat of stone itself.
Even here, under corruption's sway, that heritage remained, though blurred and treacherous.
He willed himself to filter out the nauseating taint, sensing beneath the soil the faint rhythm of energy flow.
Corruption was like viscous venom, seeping into every root, every rock fissure.
Yet even venom had movement—streams, nodes of concentration, and pockets where it thinned.
Sweat beaded on Karrion's brow as he murmured ancient dwarven prayers to the earth's spirit, seeking guidance on this living trap.
"Energy… it's flowing," he croaked. "Chaotic… yet patterned…"
Eyes snapping open, he pointed. "There—over there! The flow is steadier, like a corridor of relative calm."
Raine and Thalia hurried after.
Where Karrion indicated, the trees' motion slackened and the vines' aggression eased—relatively speaking.
But only relatively.
Shadows still shifted in maddening illusions: contorted faces flickering in bark, tempting lights luring them astray.
"Don't be fooled," Thalia warned, her tone urgent.
Her awareness was razor‑keen in this living trap.
Shadow and corruption were kin—drawn together, repelled, tangled.
She detected certain nodes of primal energy—centers of corruption, engine rooms of the maze's shifts.
"Thirty steps to the left‑front, energy surges there," she whispered, guiding Karrion to veer off.
He obeyed without hesitation.
Thalia's guidance proved vital—but each step deeper cost her.
Sensing those energy seams was like plunging needles into her soul.
The corruption tides battered the starcore shard in her chest, every breath a searing ache.
She pressed her hidden hand tighter over her heart, stifling the iron tang in her throat—no one could know.
They pressed onward, each footfall a perilous gamble.
Karrion trusted the quaking earth beneath his boots, Thalia watched for deadly currents, Raine gripped his blade, alert to physical ambush.
The maze felt infinite.
They skirted a fetid swamp where pale hands reached from the muck, traversed a grove of twisting seed pods writhing with vile movement, and glimpsed half‑seen wraith‑echoes in the mist—ghostly Starborn, their silent accusations cutting deep.
Hope drained away.
Raine's body and spirit buckled under the strain; he wondered if they would ever escape this living nightmare.
Then the corridor ahead vanished.
The arboreal walls snapped shut, branches twisting overhead to seal the exit.
Tangled vines whipped down and barred any retreat.
The stench of corruption closed in.
"Blast it!" Karrion roared, hammer swung at the shifting wood—but the living wall barely shuddered.
Thalia unleashed her shadow magic, forging a fleeting barrier, but the onslaught of vines overwhelmed it.
They were trapped.
A frigid despair clawed Raine's heart.
At that instant, Raine's mind flared with a single, urgent flash—not a clear vision, but a visceral impulse.
Down to his right, near the foot of a gnarled root, a whisper of differing energy flickered—an opening, a fissure.
Simultaneously, a white‑hot agony burst in his skull: starfire backlash!
He gasped, blood trickling from his nose, vision blurring.
"There!" he croaked, pointing with shaking certainty.
Karrion and Thalia barely had time to react.
Survival instincts kicked in.
Karrion hefted his hammer and charged toward Raine's direction.
Thalia followed at his flank, snaring vines with shadow tendrils to delay the closing walls.
Raine, reeling but resolute, stumbled after them.
Where he'd pointed, the root mass split at a dwarf‑hammer strike, unveiling a narrow tunnel just big enough for one.
Within lay a faint glow—and an air markedly less acrid.
"Go!" Karrion bellowed, diving in.
Thalia immediately joined him, and Raine scrambled through the gap.
Behind them, the maze walls clanged shut with thunderous force, vines sealing the breach.
A roar of anger echoed as though the forest itself had snapped.
Inside the tunnel, darkness pressed in, pierced only by that distant glimmer.
The air was damp and earthy, carrying less of the suffocating corruption's weight.
Raine slid down to the ground, gasping.
Starfire backlash thrashed through him like tidal waves of pain.
He wiped his bleeding lip, hands trembling.
Once assured of their safety, Karrion slumped beside him, drinking in air and regarding Raine with concern.
"You all right, lad?"
Raine flicked his head, voice weak: "I'll… manage."
He looked to Thalia, who leaned against the tunnel wall, hooded face drawn, her fingers white where they gripped her cloak.
"What is this place?" Karrion asked, scanning the cramped stone passage.
It felt both natural and carved by some subterranean beast.
Thalia rose, breath steady despite her own exhaustion.
"Perhaps a weak point within the maze's structure… a temporary safe haven."
She paused. "Corruption's flow is not constant. The maze itself shifts."
That meant their safety was fleeting.
An icy knot of urgency tightened in Raine's chest.
"Enough talk," Karrion grunted, hefting his hammer once more. "While this hole remains open, let's get outta here!"
Raine drew a ragged breath and forced himself upright.
Thalia led the way into the gloom, her senses still their only reliable guide.
Karrion brought up the rear, warhammer ready for any last‑ditch ambush.
Together, they plunged deeper into the living dark.
The Corruption Maze's trials were far from over, every step a chance at survival—or a plunge into yet darker traps.
Their path forward was lit only by one another's fragile trust and Raine's costly instinct—a fleeting spark in a forest bent on their doom.